PITTSBURGH – The Duquesne University volleyball team lost a hard-fought battle with the Dayton Flyers in three sets Tuesday night at the UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse.

Duquesne falls to 5-19 (2-10 A-10) while Dayton moves to 15-10 (9-3 A-10).  

Despite losing all three sets, none of them were easily won by Dayton. Duquesne led at some point in every set, and never lost by more than five in any of the three.

Senior Morgan Kelly dominated offensively and led all players with 14 kills. She hit .400 and also recorded three blocks.

Graduate student Elizabeth Osborn had seven kills while Ariel Helm had four kills and five blocks.  

Senior Anita Parrott had five kills and three blocks and freshman Carsyn Henschen totaled three kills to go along with two blocks.

Senior Hailey Poling had 31 assists tonight.

As a team Duquesne blocked nine shots while Dayton blocked only eight. What hurt the Dukes was hitting percentage, as Dayton hit .252 compared to Duquesne's .124.

HOW IT HAPPENED
Dayton went on an early 6-0 run to make it 10-4, but from there, Duquesne actually outscored the Flyers 16-15. Duquesne would never catch up after the early deficit, but they fought hard even got it as close as one point after going on a 6-1 run.

It was a similar story in set two, except it was Duquesne who was able to jump out to a lead. The Dukes led by two through the middle of the set until Dayton took the lead at 14-13 and never gave it up. Once again, Duquesne battled and kept it within a handful of points the whole set, it just couldn't retake the lead.

Set three was actually the closest out of the three sets, with Duquesne losing by just three points. The Dukes jumped out to a 15-8 lead, their largest lead of the night in any set, but Dayton started chipping away from there. Trailing by six at 16-10, Dayton went on a 10-2 run to give the Flyers the lead. Once they were ahead, they didn't give the lead up.

GAME NOTES

• Kelly's 14 kills led all players in the match. Her 2.82 kills per set and 220 kills both rank eighth in the conference.
• Helm has 74 blocks this season to lead the Dukes. That ranks seventh in the conference.
• Poling's 738 assists are the second-most in the conference, along with her 8.58 assists per set.

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