ADRIAN, Mich. -- The Siena Heights women's volleyball team defeated Lourdes in straight sets to improve to 2-0 in Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference (WHAC) play inside the SHU Fieldhouse on Wednesday night.
Autumn Anderson led offensively with 11 kills on a hitting percentage of .310. She also tallied seven digs in the match. Olivia Norman tallied nine kills and hit a team-high .538 while also tallying a block. Janel Ruhlman added eight kills, five digs, and two blocks. Aubrey Bates paced the play with 34 assists and Payton Osborne led defensively with 14 digs in the 3-0 victory.
The Gray Wolves (1-4, 0-2 WHAC) hopped out to a quick 5-2 lead in the first set. The Saints (6-1, 2-0 WHAC) rallied back with a 7-0 run to capture the lead, 9-5, and never looked back on the way to a 25-15 first-set win.
The second began close with the two teams trading points to a 5-5 tie. Again, Lourdes built a lead, 16-12, that was followed by a run by SHU and a lead change. This time, Siena Heights used a 6-0 run to pull ahead 18-16. Another 3-0 run extended things to 21-17, but the Gray Wolves battled back to tie things at 23. Kadie Carsten hammered a kill to give SHU the set-point and Anderson finished things with a kill to give the Saints the 2-0 lead.
Each team used a 3-0 run at the beginning of set three to create a 3-3 deadlock. The rest of the match was all Siena Heights as the home team pulled away to an 18-8 advantage and a 25-13 decision to end the match.
The Saints were consistent all night on offense hitting .278, .286, and .241 in the three sets. They held the advantage in kills 37-31 and only had 10 attack errors compared to 23 from Lourdes. Defensively the Saints outperformed the visitors as well with a 52-47 edge in digs.
Up Next
The Saints hit the road on Friday, September 17 for a WHAC meeting against Madonna at 7:00 p.m., EST.
