USF's women's volleyball team extended its season-opening win streak to 11 matches this evening as the Dons dispatched of Yale in straight games at the San Francisco Challenge.

The Dons defeated the five-time defending Ivy League champions by the game scores of 25-13, 25-14 and 25-21. With the win, USF improves to 11-0 on the season while the Bulldogs fall to 4-3.

Of USF's 11 victories this season, six have come in straight sets, including the last four, and have won 33 of 37 sets on the year. The 11-match winning streak is the program's longest skein since winning 15 straight matches to open the 2003 season.

Junior Katarina Pilepic had a team-high 10 kills for USF while Sara Staengle and Oluoma Okaro added nine to pace a balanced USF attack. Madison Murtagh finished with eight kills while Courtney Sabahi chipped in eight.
 
Kelly Johnson led the Bulldogs with 10 kills.

USF hit .459 for the match compared to .184 for Yale.

Playing its first home match in three weeks, the Dons made quick work of the Bulldogs in games one and two. USF used a 9-1 run to jump out to a 15-7 lead in game one en route to a 25-13 opening set victory. The Dons were holding a 16-13 lead in the second set before winning nine of the next 10 points for a 25-14 victory.

Game three wasn't as easy as USF held a slim 18-17 late in the set. The Dons used back-to-back kills by Okaro and Sabahi to take a 20-17 lead and never led by fewer than three points down the stretch en route to their 11th consecutive victory,

"It was good to play a home match," said head coach Gilad Doron. "We wanted to come out and set the tone by playing aggressively and I think we did that in the first two games. I thought we got them out of their comfort zone a little early in the match.

"We got positive contributions from a lot of players tonight. We'll rest up and get ready for two tough matches tomorrow."

Following the match between Yale and North Dakota State, the Dons will meet Cal State-Fullerton at 12:30. The evening session will get underway at 4:30 p.m. with Yale meeting Cal-State Fullerton, followed by the USF-North Dakota State match at approximately 7:00 p.m.

In the first match of the evening, North Dakota State (8-3) used four games to get past Cal State Fullerton (0-10), 11-25, 25-19, 25-17, 25-23.