Sept. 12, 2008

Final Stats

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - The University of Dayton Flyers continued their upward surge after defeating the Gardner-Webb Runnin' Bulldogs 3-0 (25-9, 25-9, 25-11) to extend their winning streak to five matches. With the win UD is now 6-2 while G-W slides to 2-7.

Dayton's offense and defense was well spread out in the victory. Becky Novacek was 7-of-12 and hit .583 while Nicole Bateman posted her fourth double-double notching 12 digs and 12 kills.Tiffany Gaerke had a standout performance against the Bulldogs. Gaerke was 9-of-19 on Friday for a .421 total hitting percentage.

"I was really happy to see the contributions from all of our players tonight," Sheffield said.

Freshmen Valerie Akerhielm and Anna Eytchison had strong performances as well. Akerhielm had 11 digs and Eytchison picked up four kills and two digs.

Erin Schroeder and Kacie Hausfeld shared duties on setting the ball for the Flyers. Schroeder set 16 balls early for UD then Hausfeld took over setting a career-high 15 balls for Dayton in their win.

"We talked before the match about being consistent and playing with energy, and I thought we did a really good job of both of those things tonight," Sheffield said. "We played `Dayton Flyer' volleyball tonight."

With the win the Flyers are now 2-0 in the Lady Vol Classic. Earlier in the day, UD knocked off No. 17 Illinois in five sets to earn their first win of the tournament. Dayton is back in action on Sunday to close out the tournament against the University of Tennessee Volunteers at 2:00 p.m. ET.