The St. Lawrence volleyball team beat the Dutchwomen of Union to qualify for the Liberty League Tournament for the second straight season.

Tied 15-15 in the first set, the Saints went on a five-point run to create some separation. That momentum carried the team to take the first set 25-17. St. Lawrence got out to a lead earlier in set two, taking a 12-7 lead midway through. The Dutchwomen were not able to get the score closer than four for the rest of the set, and St. Lawrence went on to win 25-20. The Saints were able to keep control of the match into the third set, going up 11-4 early. The Saints were able to capitalize on eight of the potential 14 sideouts for the rest of the set, and took the win 25-18.

"After some initial struggles with our passing game we were able to play our game," said head coach Shelly Roiger. "I thought everyone did their job in oder to help secure the win. There were a lot of contributors and our offensive efficiency was created by the scrappiness of the defense. This team got on a bus on Friday afternoon knowing that we needed to sweep two Liberty League matches on the road and they did just that in six sets total. After starting out the conference season 0-3 to what ended up being the top three teams in the conference, this team had a lot of opportunities to lose faith and panic or to make excuses but they did none of that. They weathered the storm, kept focusing on the details, and never lost sight of the goal to be playing in November. I am very proud of them for accomplishing that goal and now we'll focus on having a great finish to the regular season with a game at SUNY Potsdam on Tuesday, our Power of Pink match on Friday, and then honoring a special group of seniors on Saturday for Senior Day. We look forward to continuing to improve and we are grateful for the opportunity that we've earned in being a part of Liberty League playoffs in a couple of weeks."

Seniors Natalie Piper and Annika Kreppein led the Saints offense, combining to score 36.5 of the teams 53 points. Piper had 17 kills and Kreppein had 15. The pair, along with senior Reagan Collier-Hogan had 32 of the team's 46 digs, Collier-Hogan leading the way with 16.

Not for the first time this season, Piper wrote herself into the Saints' record books. Her 17 kills on 24 swings and just one error gives her a match hitting percentage of .667, which is second all time for the Saints, just behind her .700 performance against Canton this year, and just ahead of Kreppein's .654 against Vassar.

Dorian Funk had a match high 17 assists, and Allie Posnick had 15 along with two service aces.

Keara Page led the Dutchwomen with 8 kills. Haley Kresch had 12 assists, and Olivia Salvador finished with 14 digs.

St. Lawrence improves to 14-9 and 4-3 in league play to take sole control of fourth place and the final playoff spot. Union falls to 5-16 and 0-7 in league play.

Up next: at Potsdam on October 26 at 7 p.m.