LIVONIA, Mich. - The 19th-ranked Madonna University volleyball team pushed its win streak to four with a five set win over Cornerstone University inside the Alliance Catholic Credit Union Arena on Saturday afternoon. 

The Crusaders (9-3, 7-3 Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference) handed the Golden Eagles (12-2, 8-1 WHAC) their first conference loss of the season by winning the first and final two sets of the match, 25-20, 25-18 and 15-13.

HOW IT HAPPENED
The opening set saw the teams trade multi-point rallies and leads for much of the game until a DJ Sargent kill broke a tie at 18. That's when Ryan Castle stepped to the service stripe and served five straight points which included a pair of aces, two Jodie Kelly kills and a Sargent block. After two CU points made it 24-20, Kelly ended the set with a termination.

The Grand Rapids program scored the final three points of set two for the 25-22 win and then won 21-of-31 points to begin set three en route to a 25-17 victory.

In set four, MU led 9-8 before a Sargent kill put the ball back in the hands of Castle who served seven straight points, highlighted by three Sargent terminations and a pair from Kelly for the 17-8 lead. The Golden Eagles cut the margin to five before Kelly and Sargent put MU one point from a set win and Castle finished it off to force a game five with a 25-18 win.

It was a back-and-forth set five with Cornerstone taking a 10-8 lead, but the Crusaders called a timeout and responded with a pair of kills from Kelly and two CU errors for the 12-10 advantage. Kelly tallied three more kills in the match to seal the 15-13 win. 

TOP PERFORMERS

• Kelly finished with 21 kills, collected 15 digs, and had two block assists
• Sargent hit a team-high .609 with 16 kills and five blocks
• Kacie Stoneburner added 14 kills and hit .591
• Jordyn Dawson posted a season-best 43 assists and added 15 digs
• Olivia Sweeney totaled 23 digs from her libero position for MU

INSIDE THE NUMBERS
.324 - MU hit .324 (17-5-37) in the must-win fourth set and finished with a .177 (63-32-175) mark while CU hit just .158 (55-25-190)
63 - The number of kills posted by the Blue and Gold
91 - The total digs for Madonna compared to 70 for Cornerstone

UP NEXT
Madonna heads to the west side of the state to face Aquinas College in Grand Rapids on Tuesday, March 9 at 7 p.m. Visiting fans are not permitted at Aquinas, but fans can watch the game live here with live stats available here.

A live stream of the game will be available at Coaches Corner Bar & Grill located at Fox Creek Golf Course on Seven Mile Rd. in Livonia. 

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