JOLIET, Ill. --- The University of St. Francis women's volleyball team gained its first win of the season and the 500th in the career of 22-year veteran head coach Cara Currier Thursday night when the Fighting Saints opened Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference play with a 25-22, 25-15, 25-21 victory over Trinity Christian College at the Pat Sullivan Center.

Desiree Anderson notched her second double-double (11 kills, 11 digs) in as many matches, while Gabriela Oliveira led the way with 12 kills on the offensive end.  Kaylie Sippel set things up with her 30 assists.

Other key contributors on the defensive end with 12 and 11 digs, respectively, were Leah Talley and Abby Lab.  They helped limit Trinity Christian to a .046 attack percentage.
While each of the three sets were tight for most of the night, the Saints (1-4, 1-0 CCAC) held the advantage for majority of the contest.  In Set 1, a pair of 4-0 runs led to 8-4 and 13-8 leads.  Taylor Connolly (6 kills) sparked the first surge with a pair of kills.

Trinity Christian (1-5, 0-1) pulled to within 22-21 with its own run of five unanswered points before USF closed out the set with three of the final four points.

In Set 2, the Saints held a tight 13-10 lead before pulling away with five straight points and then another four in a row to end the game.  Oliveira had one kill in each burst.
Connolly and Oliveira each had a pair of kills as part of a 7-2 run to build a 13-8 lead in Set 3.  Trinity Christian cut that deficit down to 23-21 before the Saints notched the final two points with Anderson providing the exclamation point on her match-ending kill.

Notes: Currier came into the 2023 season as the 15th-winningest active head coach in the NAIA … Oliveira has now led the team in kills in each of USF's first five matches … Lab's 11 digs were a season high … The Saints recorded a .409 attack mark in Set 2 … St. Francis is off until Tuesday when it travels to Chicago to face Roosevelt University in another CCAC battle.

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