OSHKOSH, Wis.- UW-Oshkosh women's volleyball bounced back from its first loss of the season with sweeping victories over Hope College (Mich.) and the University of Chicago (Ill.) in day two of the UW-Oshkosh Invitational at Kolf Sports Center on Saturday (Sept. 13).
 
The No. 3 nationally ranked Titans (11-1) opened their day with set wins of 25-12, 25-21, 25-20 over the No. 8 Flying Dutch (4-4) and closed out the weekend with a 25-13, 25-15, 25-17 win over the Maroons (4-5) who are receiving votes in this week's American Volleyball Coaches Association poll.
 
In its first match, Oshkosh recorded 39 kills with seven aces, eight team blocks, 39 assists, and 55 digs against Hope and held leads over their opponent in each category.
 
Samantha Perlberg (Chippewa Falls/Chippewa Falls) notched 16 kills in the match, hitting .297. She also recorded 13 digs and three aces. With her seventh kill, she became the newest member of the Titans' 1,000 kills club. Jaclyn Dutkiewicz (Franklin/Franklin) and Izzy Coon (Fond du Lac/St. Mary's Springs Academy) both surpassed 10 assists with 17 and 14 while Lauren Grier (Fond du Lac/Fond du Lac) paced Oshkosh with 2.5 blocks and Grace Juergens (Lockport, Ill./Lockport Community) led the team with 18 digs.
 
UW-Oshkosh built up its lead with an early 7-2 run before breaking away by scoring five straight points that included two kills and a block. The Flying Dutch scored their 10th point of the set after the Titans added three points to reach the 20-point mark but scored just three more times against Oshkosh's five. The Titans went up, 1-0, in sets on an unforced error.
 
The Flying Dutch used two blocks and kill to claim a 4-1 lead at the start of the second set before UW-Oshkosh erased the deficit and built one of its own with six points to claim a 10-7 lead. Hope tied the score at 10 and 11 points and later reclaimed the edge with four points. Perlberg reached 1,000 kills when she scored Oshkosh's 12 point of the set. The Titans then broke a 18-18 knot when Perlberg notched another kill, Maren Motz (Hartland/Arrowhead Union) recorded two, Juergens and Grier blocked an attack, and an unforced error made the score 22-18. Motz, Emmy Wizceb (Sullivan/Johnsburg (Ill.)), and Juergens finished off the set with kills.
 
In the third set, runs of three and four points handed UW-Oshkosh a 12-6 lead which Hope responded to with five straight points to cut the deficit to a point. The Flying Dutch stuck around within two points until Perlberg registered two point of a 3-0 run with kills. Juergens, Perlberg, and a Flying Dutch error brought Oshkosh to set point, and a bad set put UWO up three sets to none over the top-10 program.
 
UW-Oshkosh led in each statistical category against the Maroons in their second match with 48 points, 39 kills, four aces, five team blocks, 39 assists, and 56 digs. The Titans hit .232 in the match on 99 total attacks with 16 errors.
 
Juergens paced the Titans with 13 kills and two aces. Perlberg hit double-digit kills once again with 12 while Coon reached 20 assists and Callie Panasuk (Oak Creek/Oak Creek) dug 17 attacks.
 
Chicago scored the first two points of the first set, but Oshkosh took a lead it wouldn't relinquish with four straight points. The Maroons were held to just one more run of at least three points across the set while the Titans added runs of three, three, and five points. Perlberg hit back-to-back kills to win the set.
 
The Maroons never scored more than twice in a row in the second set. Perlberg broke a 3-3 tie with an additional kill and added to it with yet another. After Chicago's second-to-last kill of the set, UW-Oshkosh started a 9-point run on a service error. Perlberg served an ace, Riley Borrowman (Oswego, Ill./Oswego) recorded two kills, and Juergens hit two more for Oshkosh's offensive points in the run. Wizceb scored the 24th point with a kill and responded to two Maroon points with the 25th.
 
For the first set of the match, UW-Oshkosh scored first in the third with three straight. Holding Chicago to short bursts of two points, the Titans constructed a lead of their own and added six straight midway through the set. Juergens started the run with a kill and Perlberg, the WIAC leader and third-ranked attacker in Division III, ended it with her 27th of the day to make the score 18-7. Following a number of traded points, Chicago scored a stretch of three points for the only time in the set to cut the deficit to eight points. The Titans reached match point on a service error and after two points for the Maroons, won their 11th match of the year on Juergens' 13th kill.
 
Coon and Perlberg were named to the 8-player all-tournament team after the final match concluded.
 
The Titans begin conference action on Wednesday (Sept. 17), traveling to Menomonie to face UW-Stout at Johnson Fieldhouse at 7 p.m. UW-Oshkosh is 9-1 against the Blue Devils in the last 10 matchups, last losing, 3-2, on October 27, 2018.