SAN FRANCISCO – For the second consecutive night the University of San Francisco women's volleyball team earned a hard-fought win in five sets after defeating Loyola Marymount 3-2 (25-16, 22-25, 25-21, 18-25, 15-11) on Wednesday evening at War Memorial at the Sobrato Center.
 
USF (2-2, 2-2 WCC) had a strong evening on the attack, finishing with season-bests in kills (64) and attack percentage (.324). Leading the team in kills was junior McKenna Marshall who finished with a career-best 25 kills.  Marshall was on fire tonight, her 25 kills came on 47 swings with just four errors for a career-best .447 attack percentage.  She also had 10 digs for her third double-double of the season.
 
"I thought we played with great composure and our outsides carried us, they really did a nice job," said head coach Frank Lavrisha following the win. "Aylen set well for us again, and our outsides carried us, tremendous effort by them.  But again, I'm really pleased by the composure, we are a really young team learning how to win."
 
Joining Marshall in the double digit kill category was freshman Greta Corti who finished with a season-high 21 kills.  For the fourth-straight match, Corti got better as the match went on.  Through two sets, she had just five kills with three errors, while hitting .100.  Over the final three sets she finished with 16 kills on 26 swings with just four errors for a .462 attack percentage. In the fifth and final set she smashed five kills on seven swings with no errors.
 
With Marshall and Corti finishing with over 20 kills each it is the first time the Dons have had two players with 20 or more kills in the same match since September 17, 2016 when Tyna Adamcikova and Emily Reed finished with 22 and 21 kills respectively in the five-set loss at UC Riverside.  
 
Setter Aylen Ayub finished with 52 assists on the night, she also had three service aces, two block assists and eight digs.  Anna Dall Vecchia had 16 digs and two service aces.  The 16 digs give her 984 for her career and sole possession of 10^th place all-time in USF history for digs.  She is 16 shy of becoming just the ninth player in program history to record 1,000 career digs.
 
Loyola Marymount (2-2, 2-2 WCC) hit .205 on the night with 50 kills on 132 swings with 20 errors.  Northern California native, Kari Geissberger led the Lions with 19 kills on 42 swings.  Rose Booth was the only other Lion in double figures in kills, she had 12.
 
The Dons took control of the match early taking the opening set 25-16.  The Dons blasted the Lions in that frame with 16 kills on 37 swings with just one error for a .405 attack percentage.
 
The Lions evened up the match twice winning the second and fourth sets.  USF's errors helped LMU in both cases.  The Dons struggled with service accuracy, hitting into 21 service errors on the evening.  When USF did struggle on the attack it came on those two sets, USF hit 12 of their 18 attack errors game in the second and fourth frames.
 
USF will return to action next week when they take on the Pacific Tigers for a split home and road twin billing.  The Dons are scheduled to travel to Stockton on Tuesday and return to War Memorial Gym to host the Tigers on Wednesday.  Both matches are slated for a 6:00 p.m. first serve.