The Pioneer women's volleyball team hit .323 overall and were led by 12 kills from Johanna Ovsenek (London, Ontario) in a 3-0 win over New Hampshire Saturday afternoon.  Sacred Heart improves to 2-0 in the tournament after defeating Rutgers 3-1 last night.

Sacred Heart (8-4) played nearly perfect in the first set as they tallied 14 kills without committing an error, compiling a .519 hitting percentage.  The Pioneers surged out to a 9-2 lead and did not look back the rest of the game.  Ovsenek and Ashlyn Trimble (Temecula, CA) each supplied four kills in the opening frame with Ovsenek netting a 1.000 hitting mark.  Maile Hetherington (Thousand Oaks, CA) finished off the opening set 25-13 with one of her six kills of the afternoon.

New Hampshire (4-8) grabbed its first lead of the match at 9-8 in the second set after back-to-back errors from SHU.  Later in the set Jade Huxtable dropped in a service ace to bring the Wildcats within one at 19-18.  However, two straight UNH errors followed by kills from Dianis Mercado (Vega Baja, Puerto Rico) and Trimble extended the SHU lead to 23-18.  Two more Wildcat miscues would eventually end the set 25-19 in favor of the Pioneers, giving them a 2-0 lead in the match.

UNH jumped out to a 5-1 advantage in the third set on the strength of back-to-back blocks and forcing SHU head coach Rob Machan to call a timeout.  The Pioneers inched closer before rattling off five straight points to take a 17-14 lead after a block from Ovsenek and Trimble.  New Hampshire's Jessie Schnepp hit a service ace to make it 22-21 and try and keep her team in the match late.  But the Pioneers claimed three of the next four points to win the final set 25-22 and complete a sweep of the tournament host.  Trimble's seventh kill was the match winner on a set from Courtney Kidd-Kadlubek (Santa Barbara, CA), who notched 39 total assists.  

The Pioneers conclude action at the Holly Young Invitational later this afternoon against Dartmouth.  Sacred Heart and the Big Green both finished the 2010 SHU Invitational at 3-0 as co-champions earlier this season as the two teams never faced each other in Fairfield, CT.