Duquesne University Athletics

PITTSBURGH – Four finished with double-digit kill totals to help the Duquesne volleyball team (8-10, 3-4 A-10) pick up a 3-1 league win over Davidson (8-9, 4-3 A-10) Sunday afternoon at UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse.
 
The Dukes won by tight set scores of 27-25, 22-25, 28-26 and 25-23.
 
Morgan Kelly (Florence, Ky./Cooper) led the team with 18 kills. Both Summer Slade (Lancaster, N.Y./St. Mary's) and Anna Shoemake (Dayton, Ohio/Beavercreek) each registered kill-dig double doubles. Slade posted 16 kills and 12 digs, while Shoemake posted season highs of 14 kills and 20 digs.
 
Ego Onu (Lansdale, Pa./Lansdale Catholic) tallied 10 kills, while Anita Parrott (League City, Texas/Clear Falls) chipped in nine and a team-high five blocks.
 
Hailey Poling (Uniontown, Ohio/Lake) tossed around 57 assists – one shy of a career-high – and added 14 digs and a trio of service aces.
 
Camille Spencer (Brentwood, Tenn./Ravenwood) led the defense with 23 digs, while Ashley Larson (Highlands Ranch, Colo./Valor Christian) finished with 13.
 
The Dukes hit .269 as a team with a season-best 69 kills on 175 attacks (22 errors). It was the third-highest hitting percentage in a single-match posted by DU this season.
 
Davidson's Isabel Decker finished with a match-high 22 kills to leada the Wildcats.
 
The Dukes will continue A-10 play on Friday, October 15 when they host Fordham at UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse. The match is slated to start at 7 p.m. and will broadcast live on ESPN+.
 
HOW IT HAPPENED

• The Dukes opened up a 6-2 lead on a Shoemake kill and maintained a four-point lead at 16-12 on another kill from the Dayton native. Davidson rallied back and put the Dukes in an 18-17 hole and eventually had the lead at 23-20. After Duquesne notched four-straight points to make the score 24-23, the two squads traded points and were squared away at 25-25. DU closed out the set with a pair of Davidson attack errors, including a block by Onu, to secure the win at 27-25.
• The Wildcats had the Dukes in an 8-3 hole early in the second set. DU chipped away at the deficit and brought the Davidson lead down to 16-15. DU was unable to tie or take the lead from the Wildcats, who built their lead back to as many as four and tied the match up with a 25-22 win.
• Duquesne opened up the third set with leads of 8-3 and 16-9. The Dukes led 23-15 and looked poised to close out the set, but a run of nine-straight points by Davidson suddenly put DU in a 24-23 hole. The Dukes managed to even the set back up at 24 and staved off another set-point deficit, before getting kills by Parrott and Shoemake to pull out a 28-26 set win.
• The two teams traded the lead early in the fourth set, before the Wildcats established a 15-10 advantage. The Wildcats appeared to be on their way to forcing a fifth set when they went ahead 21-15, but the Dukes battled all the way back and closed out the match with a 10-2 run, including six-straight points to clinch the match at 25-23.