LORETTO, Pa. (Nov. 6, 2010) - The Saint Francis women's volleyball team showed that they were still very much alive in the hunt for the fourth and final playoff spot in the Northeast Conference, authoring a dominant performance over the Quinnipiac Bobcats in a 3-0 (25-20, 25-17, 25-15) victory at DeGol Arena.

The Red Flash improve to 7-19 overall 5-8 in the Northeast Conference. Quinnipiac falls to 6-20 overall, 4-8 in the Northeast Conference. By virtue of winning percentage, SFU sits just ahead of Quinnipiac with what is essentially a half-game lead. The Bobcats hold a game in hand. Fairleigh Dickinson also lost on Saturday, meaning the Red Flash sight one game behind the Central Connecticut State Blue Devils for the fourth place slot. As it currently stands, it is unclear who would hold the tiebreaker should the two teams finish with the same record.

The Red Flash had been putting together strong offensive sets here and there over the last several matches, but against the Bobcats they were able to put together a string of dominant attacks. The Flash finished the match with a .292 hitting percentage as a team. Meanwhile, the Flash defense stymied the Bobcats attack, who hit -.045 for the match and did not record a set with a positive hitting percentage. The Flash had a total of 10.0 team blocks, as compared to none for Quinnipiac.

However, the way things started out, it looked like Quinnipiac would own the match. They opened the first set with an 8-2 run. Instead of calling time out, as is often the case in a situation like this, Red Flash head coach Chuck Mullen instead allowed his team to play through the slump. They delivered, scoring nine of the next 10 points to tie the set at 10-10. The two teams battled back and forth before Amanda Zahumensky (Sarver, Pa./Freeport Area) (Sarver, Pa./Freeport) broke through with a kill and gave her team a 20-19 lead. She followed that up by combining with Lizzy Williams (North Bend, Ohip/Saint Ursula) for a block that made the score 21-19 and prompted a Quinnipiac timeout. The Flash scored four of the last five points to win the set 25-20.

SFU utterly controlled the final two sets of the match, forcing the Bobcats into hitting percentages of -.040 and -.091 in the second and third sets, respectively; to put this in perspective, SFU hit .348 and .310 in those sets. With the exception of a single point near the beginning of the third set, the Red Flash would never again trail the Bobcats en route to the exciting win on Homecoming weekend.

Lauren Wingard (York, Pa./Dallastown Area) (York, Pa./Dallastown) had a match-high with 13 kills, an average of 4.33 per set, and also added three blocks. Lizzy Williams had six kills and a match-high seven total blocks. Lindsay Malloy (Gallitzin, Pa./Penn Cambria) (Gallitzin, Pa./Penn Cambria) finished second on the team and in the match with nine kills, and also added 7 digs. Chrissy Breisch (Edwardsburg, Mich./Edwardsburg), who earlier this week was named an ESPN Academic All-District 2 selection, tied the match-high with 10 digs. Kierstin Kiser (Clarion, Pa./Clarion) (Clarion, Pa./Clarion) had 33 assists.