Sept. 10, 2008
ORLANDO, Fla. (www.ucfathletics.com) - Behind a career-night from middle-blocker Lauren Williams (Lake Mary, Fla.), the UCF volleyball team defeated in-state rival Bethune-Cookman, 3-0 (25-16, 25-13, 25-9), at The Venue at UCF Wednesday night. Williams hit a career-high .769 with 10 kills in the victory, with her attack-percentage mark ranking fifth all-time for UCF in a single match.
With the win the Black and Gold improved its record to 4-4 on the season.
Fellow middle blocker Jenny Heppert (Lawrence, Kan.) also put up big numbers for the Knights in the match, posting 10 kills, a .600 hitting percentage, four total blocks and three service aces.
"As we get into the conference season for us to be successful, we can't be so dependent on our outside hitters," Dagenais said following the match. "Tonight the instructions were, serve and pass, and execute the middle. Looking at the stats, both Lauren Williams and Jenny Heppert had career-type nights. I thought we did a really nice job of getting them the ball and making it successful."
Heppert recorded all three of her service aces in the third set, where she rattled off 12-straight points to put the Black and Gold ahead, 13-1, where the Knights eventually won the deciding set, 25-9. The margin of victory for UCF in set three was the largest it has posted all season.
"We knew we wanted to stay focused, and one of our goals was to string points together," Heppert said. "I think we really focused on that and focused on getting serving runs and not letting up on our defense. I think it worked, and today we saw the results we wanted to see."
Erin Campbell (Kansas City, Mo.) led all hitters with 13 kills, extending her streak of consecutive-games with double-digits in kills to four.
As a team, the Knights hit a season-high .376 against the Wildcats (1-8), with setter Lauren Rosenthal (Colorado Springs, Colo.) effectively and efficiently running the offense with 35 assists.
All 16 Knights saw action in the victory, with Sara Rex (Oldsmar, Fla.), Erin Callahan (Alpharetta, Ga.) and Katie Riley (Merritt Island, Fla.) all registering their first collegiate kill. Also recording a first for UCF was freshman Katie Duggan (Margate, Fla.) who had the first two digs of her career.
"Overall, I was very happy with the level of execution," Dagenais said. "It is not very often that you are able to get all 16 players into a match, and I am pretty proud that we were able to do that tonight."
Season tickets for UCF's 2008 volleyball campaign at The Venue are currently available by calling the UCF athletics ticket office at 407-UCF-1000. For the latest news on the Knights, log on to www.UCFAthletics.com - the official site for UCF varsity sports. The site, which also contains ticket and Golden Knights Club donor information, is also the home of UCF's new online apparel store. Also visit www.UCFPhotos.com, the exclusive fan source for UCF action sports pictures.
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