ROMEOVILLE, Ill. – Lewis University's 14th ranked women's volleyball team cruised to a straight sets win over McKendree on Friday evening at Neil Carey Arena. The Flyers improve to 8-3, 3-0 GLVC while the Bearcats drop to 3-7, 1-1 GLVC.

Lewis never trailed in the opening set scoring the first four points of the match and nine of the first 11. The Flyers led by as many as 13 points in the set after Juliana Van Loo's (Burbank, Calif./John Burroughs) kill to end the set. Lewis hit .484 in the frame with 17 kills against two errors in 31 chances and was led by Natalie Stefanski (Plainfield, Ill./Joliet West) with seven kills while Van Loo and Ava Venema (Westmont, Ill./Timothy Christian) had three kills apiece.

The Flyers picked up where they left off in the middle frame scoring the first six points and eventually led by as many as 11 points at 24-13 on a kill from Lauren Stenman (Maplewood, Minn./North St. Paul). Lewis hit .429 in the second stanza registering 13 kills against only one error in 28 chances. Venema and Bella Ray (Plainfield, Ill./Joliet Catholic) combined for 10 of the team's 13 kills in the frame.

The final set saw three ties and a lead change early in the stanza before the Flyers pulled away with an 8-1 run to break a 3-3 tie. The lead grew to 15 points at 23-8 on a kill from Venema and the match ended on a service error from Amanda Tipett to win 25-10.

Lewis finished the match hitting .417 with 46 kills against six errors in 96 chances. Venema led three Flyers in double figures with 11 kills while Stefanski and Ray added 10 kills apiece. Stenman had a match-high 35 assists and Jamie Poppen (Ballwin, Mo./Parkway West) had a match-high 18 digs. Megan Schlechte (Strasburg, Ill./Stewardson-Strasburg) had three aces and Venema finished with three total blocks.

Lewis' defense held McKendree to a .039 attack percentage with 22 kills against 18 errors in 102 chances. Brianna Binder led the Bearcats with eight kills while Colleen Preusser added six kills. Macy Tongate had 19 assists and Binder had a team-high 13 digs.

The Flyers are back in action on Saturday (Sept. 25) hosting Southern Indiana at 3 p.m. at Neil Carey Arena.