The Dominican University women's volleyball team played in a tri-match at Elmhurst College on Saturday morning, topping the host Bluejays in five sets (19-25, 25-14, 21-25, 29-27, 17-15) before falling to the 13^th-ranked University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Warhawks in three sets (25-21, 25-22, 25-19).  The split pushes the Stars to 11-4 on the season with trip down to Eurkea College on deck for Tuesday evening before returning to Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference (NACC) play next weekend at Edgewood and Rockford.
 
"Elmhurst was a well-fought battle," commented Peter Maniscalco, Dominican University assistant women's volleyball coach. "We were more terminal in the match, playing with a little more aggression behind our swings.  We had a number of players step up and be willing to take big swings during a close match. Elmhurst was scrappy and tested our ability to be gritty—we had to earn our points."
 
"With Whitewater," continued Maniscalco, "we tried to not look too deep into the national ranking. We know we are able to compete with the best teams in the country. A lot of our success comes from how well we can play our game. I was happy with our battle against Whitewater. I was impressed with our ability to stay in it and be aggressive and close the gap. We took some big swings off of some great digs from our backcourt which kept us there with them. It was a good test for us, showing us we are not that far off from consistently staying with the top teams.  I'm excited to get back to practice on Monday."
 
The Stars hit .169 for the day, averaging 12.8 kills per set.  Sophomore Gabija Sinickaite led the way for the attack, knocking down 24 kills, 19 coming in the win over Elmhurst, while hitting .237 for the day.  Gillian Jones added 20 kills of her own, including 11 against Whitewater, while freshman Keely McCallum went for 19 kills on 45 swings.
 
Anastasia Labadessa and Natalie Jones shared setting duties, dishing out 50 and 29 assists respectively.
 
Defensively, Sarah Lychock logged match-high honors in both contests, digging a total of 47 attacks on the day. In the win over Elmhurst, Lychock collected 26 digs while the sophomore added 21 digs in the loss to the Warhawks.