The Dominican University women's volleyball team punched their ticket into the semifinal round of the 2019 Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference (NACC) Tournament with a 3-1 (25-22, 17-25, 25-17, 25-21) win over the Wisconsin Lutheran College Warriors on Tuesday evening at the Igini Sports Forum. The four-seed Stars (23-6, 9-3 NACC) will square off against the top-seeded Aurora University Spartans (21-10, 10-2 NACC) on Thursday at Aurora, in a rematch of Dominican's thrilling five-set win in the Stars' regular season finale back on October 30.
"What an awesome win," commented
Cameron Andrew, the Stars' second-year head coach, following Tuesday's NACC quarterfinal win. "I'm really proud of the team. We ran a really balanced offense tonight with five players hitting over .200 and we will need to continue distributing the ball that way as we move forward in the postseason. Emily [Mahoney] was huge tonight, coming in and filling Olivia's [Magnussen] shoes, tallying eight kills."
The Stars outhit the visiting Warriors .212 to .137, tallying 53 kills on the night while allowing Wisconsin Lutheran to finish the night with 42 kills.
Gabija Sinickaite finished the night with a team-high 11 kills on 37 swing while committing just three errors. After Dominican dropped the second set, the sophomore standout knocked down four kills as Dominican recaptured the lead and the momentum with a 25-17 win in the third frame.
Dominican's middles,
Keely McCallum and
Emily Mahoney added nine kills apiece while
Gillian Jones and
Summer Smith tallied eight kills each.
Haley Notzen finished the night with five kills as
Anastasia Labadessa (23 assists) and
Natalie Jones (21 assists) ran an efficient and balanced Dominican attack.
Defensively, the Stars collected 67 digs on the night.
Sarah Lychock led the back row effort with a match-high 25 digs while
Gillian Jones added 13 in the all-around effort for the junior. At the net, Mahoney and Sinickaite posted three block assists apiece while McCallum and
Gillian Jones tallied two block assists apiece.
The Stars will be back in the gym on Wednesday, preparing for Thursday's matchup with the Spartans which features two of the NACC's top offenses. The Spartans (12.82) and Stars (12.47) rank first and second in the NACC in kills per set with Dominican (.208) ranking second in attack percentage and the Spartans (.197) ranking fifth.
"I think we will need to be a little sharper against AU on Thursday," added Andrew. "We know they are going to be gunning for us and our serve receive and coverage was not quite where we need it to be tonight. We will get a little better tomorrow and be ready for Thursday."
