LOUISVILLE, KY.—In horse racing, elite thoroughbreds often have that extra gear that allow them to thunder down the stretch and easily outdistance the competition.
 
Tonight at Knights Hall, the Bellarmine Volleyball team had that extra gear as blew past the visiting McKendree Bearcats 25-14, 25-17, 25-16 in a Great Lakes Valley Conference match.
 
Bellarmine and McKendree were tied at 11 in the first set, when all of the sudden the Knights hit the accelerator and blew past the Bearcats with a 10-1 spurt to cruise to the win.
 
Similarly in the second set, the Knights broke open a 9-9 tie with an 8-1 run to take command before posting the 25-17 win.
 
And continuing with the horse racing theme, the third set was more a wire-to-wire win for Bellarmine as the Knights took the lead at 7-6 and never relinquished it as the final score represented the largest margin of the set.
 
For the match, the Knights more than doubled McKendree's attack percentage as Bellarmine hit .315 while holding the Bearcats to just .149. 
 
Individually, Katie Adams continued her strong play with a match-high 12 kills and a hitting percentage of .429. Meanwhile, Bailey Roszman notched 10 kills while hitting .321, and Julia Dailey and Abbie Oetting recorded seven kills each.
 
Setters Kristen O'Toole and Sam Rickert each dished out 17 assists and were also effective in the service game.  O'Toole, who came into the match fourth in the league in service aces, helped improve her standing in that statistic by uncorking three aces in the match.
 
The victory extended Bellarmine's school-record winning streak to 11 matches as the Knights improve to 20-8 (11-6 GLVC) and post back-to-back 20-win seasons for the first time since 1979 and 1980.   
 
Bellarmine closes out the regular season on Saturday with a 3 p.m. match in Knights Hall against Illinois Springfield. A pregame ceremony will honor the Knights' four seniors: Adams, Jordyn Kuchenbrod, Toni DalleCarbonare, and Abby Schlaug.

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