Box Score The Grand Valley State Lakers secured a 3-0 victory over the Golden Eagles of Clarion in their second match of the day at the UIndy Invitational. The victory moves the Lakers to 3-3 on the season. GVSU won by scores of 25-14, 25-10, and 25-20.
 
The Lakers dropped their first match of the day to Wheeling Jesuit, 3-1 before coming back for the victory against Clarion. GSVU will look to move over the .500 mark tomorrow (Sept. 9) as they will play two matches to finish out the invitational. The Lakers will face-off against host school Indianapolis at 1:00 p.m. before taking on #13 Winona State in the final match of the invite.
 
GVSU led Clarion in kills (44-26), assists (42-26), digs (54-49), blocks (5-4), and aces (3-0). The Lakers also posted a .270 hitting percentage while holding Clarion to just .009 in the match.
 
Sophomore Jayci Suseland led the GVSU offense with 11 kills and a match high .474 hitting percentage. Junior Staci Brower added nine kills of her own while also adding two block assists. Senior Sydney Doby tallied two block assists to go along with a block assist while adding eight kills as well.
 
Sophomore libero Sydney Benchley led the team with 19 digs while also chipping in six assists. Senior Katie Olson led the squad in assists with 33, also a match high. Junior Hannah Murdock added nine digs and seven kills as well.
 
The Lakers and the Golden Eagles played even in the beginning of the first set until GVSU broke a 6-6 tie with a 9-2 run to spring out to a 15-8 lead. During the run, GVSU would capitalize off of four attacking errors and a blocking error by Clarion as well as two kills from Winicki, and a kill each from Brower and Doby. The Golden Eagles would bring the score to within four after three straight points, but the Lakers would score three of the next four to take an 18-12 lead. After Clarion went on a small run the Lakers would find themselves up 20-14 and would rattle off the final five points of the set for a 25-14 win and a 1-0 lead in the match.
 
The second set of the match seemed like it would follow the script of the first after the teams were tied 2-2, but the Lakers would go on a 9-2 run to take the early 11-5 lead. The closest that Clarion would get the rest of the match would be five points, when the score was 12-7 in favor of the Lakers. With GVSU up 17-10, they would go on to tally eight straight points to finish with a dominant 25-10 victory and go up 2-0 heading into the third set. The Lakers were led by the trio of Suseland, Brower, and Doby, who all recorded four kills during the second set. Winicki added two kills of her own while Murdock tallied one during the rout.
 
The third set was much closer as the Lakers and Golden Eagles would find themselves in a 9-9 tie after the first eighteen points. GVSU would use a four point run courtesy of a Winicki kill, an error by Clarion, and consecutive kills from Doby and Suseland to open a 13-9 lead, which they would not relinquish the rest of the set. Clarion kept the set close, as they would close the gap over the next few points to shrink the lead to 20-18 Lakers. GVSU would go on a 5-2 run to close out the third set and secure the 3-0 victory over the Golden Eagles.
 
After the Lakers final two matches tomorrow, GVSU will have the week off before hosting their first home match of the season against Ashland at 7:00 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 15.