Blue Knights Prevail in 5 at NDC

SOUTH EUCLID, Ohio (October 12, 2012) - The Blue Knight volleyball team won their 5th match in their last 7 outings, outlasting the Falcons from Notre Dame College in 5 thrilling sets.  Urbana raced out to a 2-0 lead, winning the first 2 sets 25-19, 28-26, but the Falcons wouldn't go quietly in front of their home crowd.  NDC stormed back to take sets 3 and 4 by scores of 25-18, 25-17, setting the stage for a fifth set tiebreaker that the Blue Knights won by a score of 15-13.  

With the win Urbana improves to 5-2 in their last 7 matches.  The Blue Knights are 2-1 in 5-set matches.  Notre Dame falls to 4-16 overall and 0-3 in 5-set matches.  The Falcons ended Urbana's season last fall in the first round of the season-ending tournament, so Friday night's victory was a little bit of sweet revenge for the veteran Blue Knights.

Leading the way for Urbana was sophomore hitter Kelsey Volkmer.  Volkmer was a workhorse at the net for the Blue Knights, racking up a school-record 77 attacks.  Volkmer converted on 31 of her attacks, which is just 6 behind her own school record of 37 kills set just 2 weeks ago against Trevecca Nazarene University.  Urbana's most effective hitters were Mary Hendricks and Amy Hickman.  Hendricks was perfect 5 for 5 on her attacks, while Hickman hit .357 with 5 kills on 14 attempts with no errors.  Hendricks also led the team in assists (42) and digs (15).  Hickman and fellow senior Karla Vogel each recorded 14 digs, and Katlin Kremer reached double-digit kills with 10 on 28 attempts.  Kremer also had a team-best 3 solo blocks.  

The red-hot Blue Knights are off the rest of the weekend, but they return to action on Tuesday night to take on the NAIA's 17th ranked Red Wolves from Indiana University-East.  Game time is set for 7:00 p.m. in Richmond, Indiana.  Urbana has won 3 straight road matches after dropping each of their first 12 matches away from the Grimes Center this season. [Box Score]