The Dominican University women's volleyball team saw their 2019 campaign come to a close on Thursday night, falling to the top-seeded Aurora University Spartans in three sets (25-20, 28-26, 25-18) to close the season at 23-7 overall.
 
"We played some really good ball tonight," commented Cameron Andrew, the Stars' head coach, following the conclusion of his second season at the helm of the Dominican women's volleyball program. "Give credit where credit is due, AU played a really solid match. We left a few opportunities out there and it could have been a completely different match had we been able to close out that second set."


"What a great season though," continued Andrew. "I'm so proud of this team. While we came up short of our ultimate goal, we still accomplished so much this season. 23-7 is an impressive record. This group battled through adversity and came roaring back from 1-2 in conference play to pushing the number-one seed in the conference semis."
 
Despite a slow start, the Stars erased an 11-2 deficit in the first set, evening the score at 13-13 on a four-point run that saw a pair of Aurora errors coupled with an Emily Mahoney service ace and a Gillian Jones kill.  After a Spartans' timeout, Aurora tallied the next two points to pull back in front and never let the Stars string together back-to-back points the remainder of the set to take the opening frame, 25-20.
 
Dominican hit just .031 in the first set, committing eight errors while managing nine kills.
 
The second set was a different story for the Dominican attack, hitting .300 with 18 kills while committing just three errors.  However, the Stars couldn't slow down Aurora who hit .288 in the second, collecting 20 kills.  Aurora also won the sideout battle in the second set, going 20-for-26 on sideouts, slightly better than Dominican's 20-for-28.
 
It was Jones carrying the heavy load in the second, racking up seven of her team-high 12 kills on the night in the middle set.  Summer Smith and Gabija Sinickaite also caught fire in the frame, combining for eight kills on 17 swings with just two errors after managing just two kills with five errors in the opening set.
 
The second set loss seemed to knock the wind out of Dominican a bit, putting the upset bid to rest as the Spartans hit .263 in the third to put the match on ice.
 
In total, the Stars, paced by Jones' 12 kills on 31 attacks, hit .192 with Anastasia Labadessa and Natalie Jones racking up 18 and 13 assists respectively.  Sinickaite finished the night with eight kills while Smith and Keely McCallum totaled six kills apiece.
 
Defensively, Sarah Lychock picked up a match-high 19 digs as the Stars out-dug the Spartans 59-55 for the second time this season.  Gillian Jones added 11 digs for the double-double effort.
 
"I want to thank our seniors," said Andrew, "Lauren and Amanda for everything that they gave to our program over their careers and can't wait to welcome them back as alums. Both are going to do wonderful things. As for our returners, tomorrow we start to look at the future. We are bringing back a fantastic core and I see wonderful things in store for Dominican women's volleyball."