ST. LOUIS - Saturday afternoon, the Truman volleyball team recorded a sweep at Missouri-St. Louis for the first time since October 3, 2006. Coming into the day, UMSL had won four straight, 10 of its last 12 and all five of its previous home matches.
The Bulldogs pushed their winning streak to four while improving to 7-11 overall and 6-3 in the GLVC. The Tritons now have a 2016 record of 11-5, which includes a 6-3 mark in league play.
Claire Viviano (pictured) had a big day for the Purple and White as she sent home a team-high 11 kills with just three errors on 29 total attacks for a .276 hitting percentage.
Savvy Hughes registered 35 assists and has had at least 30 in seven of the team's 18 matches, including six of the last seven.
Kayla Bastian led the squad in service aces with two,
Natalie Brimeyer did so in blocks with six and
Lauren Wacker was the top Dog in digs with 14. Hughes also dug out 10 balls to earn her seventh double-double of her sophomore campaign.
Each of the first two sets saw wire-to-wire play as they featured a combined 21 ties and eight lead changes with Truman coming out on top in each, 27-25. The first set contained the home team's best hitting performance of the day at .160 with 18 kills and 10 errors on 50 swings. Meanwhile, the Bulldogs would save their best for last as they hit .222 in the third set with 14 kills and six errors on 36 total attacks.
Throughout the first set, neither team led by more than two points and each side's longest run was four points. However, the visitors rattled off four of the final six points to go up 1-0 in the match. In the second set, Truman began to gather some momentum as it went on a 7-1 run midway through to go up by four, 11-7. After that, the Bulldogs kept the margin at two points for a while before Missouri-St. Louis fought all the way back to lead by one, 24-23. Once again, though, Truman did just enough and scored four of the final five points to go up two sets to none.
As mentioned above, the away team came out guns blazing in the third set and started it off with an 11-2 spurt. During that span, the Tritons didn't help their own cause by committing eight errors. From that point on, UMSL was never closer than four and the Bulldogs led by as many as eight, 15-7 and 21-13, before taking the win in straight sets.
Next up, Truman will compete in the 2016 Mizuno Midwest Region Volleyball Crossover in Aurora, Ill. with three matches in two days on Oct. 14-15.
