BALTIMORE – Loyola University Maryland volleyball hit a season-best .363 on Saturday while pulling up 70 digs in a three-set sweep of Lehigh University, 25-17, 25-14, 25-12, for a Patriot League win in Reitz Arena.
 
Lauren Link, Sophie Brenner and Megan Bukala all had 11 or more kills, while Ashley Dwyer directed the Greyhounds' offense with 45 assists in only three sets.
 
Link tallied 21 kills, hitting .486 with four errors on only 35 swings. She was one of two Greyhounds with double-doubles, tallying 14 digs, while Dwyer completed her double-double with 19.
 
Brenner added 14 kills with a .344 hitting percentage, and Bukala added 11 kills. Loyola's middles – Adara Kellogg (eight kills) and Cecylia Guye (four) – combined to hit .476 in the win. Kellogg had a match-high five blocks, contributing to all of Loyola's stuffs.
 
Defensively, Loyola held the Mountain Hawks to just 21 kills, six fewer than their previous season-low. The Greyhounds had 70 digs in the three sets, led by Katie Forsythe's 20. Nine of Forsythe's digs led to transition kills, as Loyola had 27 kills in that department. Meanwhile, Lehigh had only five digs that led to kills and the Mountain Hawks had only seven kills in transition.
 
In the first set, back-to-back kills by Bukala gave Loyola a 7-6 lead and kicked off a 9-2 Greyhounds run which put them ahead, 14-8 on a Kellogg swing.
 
Lehigh closed the margin to five on four occasions, but Bukala and Guye had kills on consecutive points to put Loyola up seven, 20-13.
 
The Greyhounds closed the first set with a .386 hitting percentage, putting away 20 kills with only three errors on 44 swings.
 
That mark went up in the second to .389 as Loyola never trailed to take a 2-0 lead.
 
While the offense hit .318 in the third, it was the defense and serving that limited the Mountain Hawks. Loyola had 30 digs in the frame as Forsythe (11) and Dwyer (10) combined for 21 with Lehigh managing only two kills in the final set.
 
The win started a five-match homestand for the Greyhounds who are back in Reitz Arena next weekend for a pair of contests, starting with a Friday, October 21, affair with College of the Holy Cross at 7 p.m.