The Dominican University women's volleyball team closed out a perfect weekend at the Marilyn Scribner Invitational at Wheaton College on Saturday, sweeping through Buena Vista in three sets (25-9, 25-18, 25-21) before outlasting the host Thunder in five sets (25-19, 25-18, 25-27, 25-27, 15-10) to improve to 8-2 on the season.
 
In the win over the Buena Vista Beavers, freshmen Keely McCallum and Ola Magiera combined to hit .629.  McCallum collected nine kills on 14 swings while Magiera went for eight kills on 13 attack attempts.  Neither committed an error.  Summer Smith led the way, knocking down ten kills while Gabija Sinickaite terminated eight rallies, hitting .286.
 
Anastasia Labadessa and Natalie Jones ran the offense, doling out 22 assists and 16 assists respectively while the Stars hit at a .354 clip.  At the serving line, Labadessa picked up five aces for the second consecutive match.
 
Defensively, Dominican limited Buena Vista to just 24 kills on a .122 attack percentage for the match while posting six blocks and collecting 40 digs.  Sarah Lychock led the back row effort with a match-high 14 digs while McCallum and Sinickaite led the charge at the net with four block assists apiece.
 
In their encore, the Stars rode Sinickaite and junior Gillian Jones to the win.  Sinickaite knocked down a match-high 20 kills on 53 swings while Jones put down 15 kills on 47 attacks.  Haley Notzen hit a team-best .467 with seven kills on just 15 swings to lead Dominican to a .158 attack percentage.
 
Labadessa and Natalie Jones shared setting responsibilities once again. Labadessa picked up 30 assists while Jones finished with 19.
 
Defensively, the Stars relied on a consisten back row effort with four Stars collecting double-digit digs.  Lychock led the way with a match-high 33 digs while Gillian Jones and Labadessa rounded double-doubles with 21 and ten digs respectively.
 
Following the tournament, Dominican's Sinickaite and McCallum were both named to the Marilyn Scribner Invitational All-Tournament Team.  For the tournament, Sinickaite collected 36 kills, averaging 3.27 kills per set while hitting .253.  McCallum hit .457 for the two-day tournament, knocking down a total of 23 kills, 2.09 per set.  The pair also led the Stars in blocking with McCallum tallying seven block assists and Sinickaite posting six block assists.
 
"I'm really proud of what we accomplished," commented Cameron Andrew, the Stars' head women's volleyball coach. "To come out of the weekend 3-0 is a huge momentum boost for the team heading into conference play. Congrats to Keely and Gabija on their selections to the all-tournament team. Keely turned in another stellar match against Buena Vista while Gabija carried us through Wheaton."
 
The Stars are set to open Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference (NACC) play on Wednesday, taking the short trek down Division Street to square off against the Concordia Chicago Cougars.  The match is set for a 7:00 p.m. start.