EAST PEORIA, Ill. – Lewis University's 21st ranked women's volleyball team opened GLVC Tournament play with a 3-0 (25-21, 25-20, 25-18) win over Indianapolis on Friday morning at the Eastside Centre in East Peoria, Ill. The Flyers, seeded first, improve to 24-6 while the Greyhounds, seeded eighth, finished their season with a record of 14-17.

The opening set went back-and-forth with 10 ties and three lead changes along the way. Lewis led by two near the midway point of the set but UIndy battled back to take a 16-15 lead after a kill by Hannah Huppenbauer. The Flyers regained the lead on back-to-back kills from Bella Ray (Plainfield, Ill./Joliet Catholic) and Amanda Greening (Metamora, Ill./Metamora) but still were unable to shake the Hounds as the set was tied at 20 after a kill from Alex Equiha.

Lewis began to pull away scoring three straight points on the strength of kills from Megan Schlechte (Strasburg, Ill./Stewardson-Strasburg) while Ava Venema (Westmont, Ill./Timothy Christian) added two to give the Flyers a 23-20 lead. UIndy got one of those points back on a service error by Schlechte before Lewis closed it out with back-to-back kills from Venema and Ray.

The Flyers used an 8-4 run midway through the middle stanza to extend its lead from 9-8 to 17-12 as Schlechte had two kills in that run while Ray, Venema and Ally Hickey (Granger, Ind./Penn) added one each. Lewis' lead grew to as many as nine at 23-14 after a bad set by Huppenbauer. The Greyhounds refused to quit though running off six straight points to cut the Flyer lead to 23-20 after an attack error from Ray.

That would be the closest they got as Lewis scored the final two points of the set on a kill and a service ace from Natalie Stefanski (Plainfield, Ill./Joliet West) to win the set 25-20.

The final stanza was all Flyers as they raced out to a 7-3 lead and wouldn't look back. The lead grew to as many as 11 points at 16-5 after an ace from Lauren Stenman (Maplewood, Minn./North St. Paul). UIndy made a late run to close the margin to five but it wouldn't be enough as Stefanski recorded a kill to set up match point and then Ray and Greening teamed up to block Lauren Cullison to end the match.

Lewis hit .225 for the contest recording 46 kills against 14 errors in 142 chances and was led by Venema with a match-high 13 kills while Ray added 10 and Schlechte and Stefanski finished with eight each. Stenman handed out 39 assists and Venema, Greening and Ray each had four blocks while Poppen had a match-high 26 digs.

The Hounds finished the match with an attack percentage of .103 registering 33 kills against 19 errors in 136 chances. Kayla Guthrie led the way for UIndy with 10 kills while Equiha had 31 assists and Makenna Barnhart finished with 19 digs.

The Flyers will play fifth seeded Quincy on Saturday afternoon at 2:30 p.m. at the Eastside Centre in East Peoria, Ill.