Sept. 5, 2008

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DAYTON, Ohio - Fans packed into a roaring Frericks Center to watch the University of Dayton Flyers defeat the Northwestern Wildcats 3-2 (27-29, 25-23, 25-18, 23-25, 15-13) in their home opener at the Dayton Flyer Invitational.

"For our first home match here in Frericks I thought the Red Scare [UD's student support group] was unbelievable," head coach Kelly Sheffield said "The crowd and their support for this program is awesome. I am looking forward to having them on our side because that is certainly not something I would want to walk into as an opponent."

With tonight's win the Flyers are now 2-2 while the Wildcats slide to 1-2 this season. Dayton outscored Northwestern in every category except for blocks where the Wildcats held a 10.0 to 1.0 advantage.

"So many people had great matches and the people that came in off the bench and played a little bit had a big role as well. This was a great team effort," Sheffield said.

Lindsay Fletemier notched 21 kills on 48 attempts for a .312 average on the night. Fletemier also added one assist and one block assist to the winning effort. Bethany Akerhielm swatted .400 on the night after going 13-of-25 from the floor.

It was a night of team defense for the Flyers as Rachael Broerman, Mandy Robbe, Erin Schroeder, Chelsy Christoff and Nicole Bateman all scored in double digits in the digs column.

Bateman and Schroeder each tallied a double-double in the win. Schroeder had 59 assists and 17 digs while Bateman added 24 digs and 15 kills.

The Flyers let the first set slip through their fingertips on a late three-point rally by the Northwestern to give them the early 1-0 match advantage. However, after making adjustments UD managed to close out the Wildcats in the second set behind Schroeder's 11 assists. Fletemier added five kills in the second set to tie the game at one apiece.

"We had four sets that were decided by two points and after the first set I thought that we really did a good job of closing games out," head coach Kelly Sheffield said.

After trading sets three and four, Dayton was able to muscle their way past the Northwestern defense to rack up their second victory of the season.

The Flyers are back in action to cap off the Dayton Flyer Invitational with a pair of matches. They host Towson at 11 a.m. on Saturday in the first match of the day and then close the tournament with Cleveland State at 7:30 p.m. at the Frericks Center. Live Stats will be available for the rest of the tournament with DaytonFlyers.com providing live streaming of the Cleveland State/UD match at 7:30 p.m. For the latest news and information visit www.DaytonFlyers.com