(RV) Volleyball sweeps Missouri Valley to close out regular season

Benedictine Volleyball wrapped up the regular season on Tuesday night with a home sweep over Missouri Valley College.

The Ravens beat the Vikings 25-19, 25-17, 25-23 to split their season series with the Vikings and secure the No. 2 seed in the upcoming Heart Women's Volleyball Conference Championship.

Benedictine finished the 3-set match hitting .255 while holding Missouri Valley to just .110, which included 14 kills through the first two sets of the match.

After playing through multiple ties in the opening set, the Ravens broke a 16-all tie with a kill from Winny Harris and two aces from Hokuloni Sagapolu. The Ravens kept the Vikings at arm's length the rest of the set. After Mahala Sewell pushed the Ravens advantage to 23-19, a pair of attack errors by the Vikings sealed the win for the Ravens. 

Missouri Valley started the second set out with a 2-0 lead before the Ravens went on a 6-0 run to erase the early deficit. After the Vikings broke that scoring run, the Ravens went on a 5-0 run and never looked back en route to the 9-point win.

After going back and forth during the third set, the Ravens used a pair of kilts from Sewell and a third from Sagapolu to pull ahead to their largest lead of the set, 14-10. The Vikings continued to match the Ravens and tied the match at 17 before a pair of aces from Sagapolu broke that tie. The Vikings closed within a point after Sewell gave the Ravens match point at 25-21, only to have an attack error in the match.

Harris was the only Raven to reach double figures with 12 attacks while hitting .450. Sewell and Maura Lickteig added 9 kills each while Regan Bruggeman added 8. 

Haley Cahill anchored the Ravens attack to their highest attack percentage since Oct. 25 with 34 of the Ravens 40 assists. 

Defensively, Evelyn Arreola and Cahill finished with 10 digs each. Sagapolu finished with 3 solo blocks and 1 block assist. Lickteig added 3 block assists while Harris finished with a solo block and block assist.

Benedictine will host Missouri Valley at 7 p.m. Saturday in the Quarterfinals of the Heart of America Athletic Conference Women's Volleyball Championship, presented by Molten.

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