BOX SCORE PLEASANTVILLE, N.Y. – The University of New Haven women’s volleyball team claimed sole ownership of its fifth-straight Northeast-10 Regular Season Championship with a 3-2 win at Pace on Tuesday evening. The win also marks the eighth 20-match winning streak in program history for the Chargers.
 
New Haven took the match by set scores of 25-22, 17-25, 25-13, 19-25 and 15-11 to improve to 23-1 overall and remain perfect at 14-0 in the Northeast-10. The Chargers have won all 73 of their regular season conference matches since joining the NE-10 in the 2008 campaign. Pace moves to 14-17 with an 8-5 conference tally.
 
Keidy Candelaria (Vega Baja, Puerto Rico/Bayamon Military Academy) led all players with 23 kills and completed her 11th double-double of the season with 13 digs. Kristen Lee (Colorado Springs, Colo./Liberty) also notched a double-double for the Chargers with 14 kills and 16 digs. Amber Cannady (Yonkers, N.Y./Charles E. Gorton) added 12 kills, Ashley Dalton (Helena, Mont./Capital / Northern Arizona University) notched six, Kristy Atufunwa (Denver, Colo./Denver East) and Kaulana Ane (Paia, Hawai'i/Kamehameha) each had three and Hayley Wilson (Denver, Colo./Overland) delivered one finisher. New Haven posted a cumulative hitting percentage of .210 (62-27-167).
 
Ane, who leaders the Northeast-10 with 10.80 assists per set, ran the offense and doled out 54 helpers.
 
Defensively, Kea-Marie Olaso (Kailua, Hawai'i/Le Jardin Academy) had a team-high 19 digs to lead four Chargers in double figures. Lee and Bai Zhang (China/Shan Dong Zi Bo No. 10 / China Shan Dong Normal University) each had 16 digs and Candelaria picked up 13 from the back row. At the net, Cannady had a hand in five of New Haven’s six blocks as the Charger defense held Pace to a .194 hitting percentage (55-24-160).
 
The Setters were led by double-doubles from Nora Rugova and Megan Kurz. Brooke Speyerer had a team-high 40 assists, and Elyse Rowland led all players with 27 digs.
 
The first set established a tone for the match, as neither team strung together more than three consecutive points up to a 17-15 lead. At that point, the Setters went on the first extended run with a 4-0 spurt to claim a 19-17 edge. The Chargers responded in kind with their first run of the match. New Haven’s five-point surge gave the visitors a 22-19 advantage, and the clubs traded the final six points to give the Chargers a 1-0 lead with a 25-22 set-one victory.
 
Set two was another back-and-forth affair up to a 12-12 deadlock. Again it was Pace take broke the tie with a 4-0 run. The stretch extended to 21-13, and the Setters cut down a late Charger push to knot the match at 1-1 with a 25-17 win.
 
The third set was the one frame with a wire-to-wire winner, as the Chargers rattled off the first six points and never looked back leading by as many as 12 points in a 25-13 triumph.
 
Despite winning five of the first seven rallies of the fourth set, New Haven could not put the match away as a 6-0 run fueled a Pace comeback that eventually tied the score at 13-13. The Setters made the next push with four-straight points and prevented the Chargers from making a run to take a 25-19 decision and force the match to a winner-takes-all fifth set.
 
The Setters took the first two points of set five, but New Haven made the first run of the deciding frame with four straight points to gain a 5-3 lead. The Chargers kept Pace at arm’s length and then ran off another three-point stretch to build an 11-7 cushion. The four-point margin proved to be the difference as a kill from Ane finished off a 15-11 win in the set and a 3-2 triumph in the match for New Haven.
 
In total, the match featured 23 ties and 15 lead changes.
 
The Chargers look to complete their fifth-consecutive perfect regular season in the Northeast-10 on Friday, Nov. 9 at Charger Gymnasium with a 7 p.m. visit from Bentley. As the No. 1 seed, New Haven will host a Northeast-10 Conference Championship Quarterfinal on Tuesday, Nov. 13 against the eighth-seeded team. The semifinal and championship rounds will be held on Friday, Nov. 16 and Saturday, Nov. 17 at the highest remaining seed.