Box Score

The Benedictine University volleyball team tallied 45 kills and a .296 team hitting percentage to defeat Aurora University 3-0 and advance to the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference semifinal match on Tuesday night.

The Eagles started off slow in the first set, allowing Aurora to take an early 6-2 lead. After kills from Jacki Kaluzny and two aces from Haley Fitzgerald, BenU went on a 14-8 run that would tie them at 16. Another service ace from Fitzgerald and kills from Kaluzny and Brooke Bowman pushed the Eagles ahead to take the set 25-18.

Set two was all Benedictine, tallying 15 kills, including five from Candice Cuppini to lead them to a 25-15 victory. Breanna Hamerlinck tallied three aces while Molly Kovacich had five kills in the third set to cruise BenU to a 25-12 win.

Bowman led all players and recorded a season high 11 kills while Kovacich was right behind her with 10 kills. Abby Sattler had 36 assists and five digs while Fitzgerald led all players with 17 digs. Hamerlinck had four aces and 10 digs.

As a team, the Eagles had 45 kills, 54 digs and four team blocks.

No. 3 Benedictine  will face No. 2 Dominican on Thursday night at 7:00 p.m. in River Forest. Live stats and video will be available here http://client.stretchinternet.com/client/dustars.portal.