Oct. 29, 2010

Box Score | Photo Gallery

DAYTON, Ohio – No. 17 University of Dayton volleyball defeated Xavier in straight sets on Friday night at the Frericks Center to extend its winning streak to 14 matches and remain undefeated in Atlantic 10 Conference play (26-24, 25-16, 25-12). 

Junior Yvonne Marten tied a season-high of 11 kills on a .409 hitting percentage while pacing the match in blocks with five. Senior Lindsay Fletemier hit .345 from the floor with a match-high 12 kills. Marten and Fletemier combined for a total of just four attacking errors to aid UD’s hitting percentage of .263.

Senior Becky Novacek added four blocks as Dayton out-blocked Xavier 9.5-to-5.5 and held the Musketeers to a .088 hitting percentage. It is the ninth time this season that UD has held its opponent to a hitting percentage under .100.

With a 26-24 first set victory for the Flyers, it marked the sixth consecutive set in the Dayton-Xavier series that has been decided by two points. Freshman Allyson Morey fueled an 8-2 opening advantage for UD by serving a 6-0 run, including one of her three aces on the night. Xavier slowly fought back to tied the set at 23. Facing set point down 23-24, sophomore Rachel Krabacher kept a broken play alive to enable Marten to issue a momentous kill in the following play to tie the set at 24. After a Xavier attacking error, senior Rachel Broerman sealed the first set for UD with an ace.

“Xavier has two servers that we had a pretty hard time with in the first set which resulted in them getting on a run and stressing us out,” Head Coach Kelly Sheffield said. “We weren’t playing as physical as I would have liked during ladder part of the first set but 80 percent of the match I thought we were physical, taking big swings and being aggressive behind the line – that was the difference.”

The Flyers had no trouble erasing an early 4-0 deficit in the second set, answering with a resounding 25-16 victory to go into the locker room up two sets. With a .364 hitting percentage, UD cut down on attacking errors from seven in the first set to just two in the second set. Five of Fletemier’s 12 kills came in the second set.

Dayton ran away with the third set behind a .324 hitting percentage while holding the Musketeers to a -.034 attack rate. UD also recorded 16 kills to Xavier’s 5 to take the final stanza by a score of 25-12 against the league’s second-place team entering the night.

Senior setter and last week’s A-10 Offensive Player of the Week Jessica Yanz notched a double-double for the Flyers with 10 digs and 29 assists. The Boilingbrook, Ill., native had a perfect 1.000 hitting percentage with six kills on six swings.

With the win, Dayton (19-3, 10-0 A-10) sweeps the season series against Xavier (14-8, 7-3) and improves an overall series advantage to 41-23. Prior to Friday, each of last three matches between the two rivals had gone to five sets.

UD also extends a home court winning streak to 22 matches. Of the Flyers’ eight wins at home this season, seven have been decided in three sets – dropping just one set to Arizona State on Aug. 28.

Dayton travels to Washington, D.C., to play George Washington for the second time in two weeks on Sunday at 1 p.m.