ARCHIVED GAME FOOTAGE

AURORA, N.Y. – Recovering from a 25-15 opening set loss, the Wells College women's volleyball team posted a 3-1 victory over the Spartans of D'Youville College on Friday at the Frances Tarlton Farenthold Athletic Wing. With their first home victory of the modern era of volleyball at Wells, the Express improve to 1-0 on the young season while the Spartans (0-1) were saddled with their first loss of the year.

The Express, who revived their women's volleyball program in 2012, secured their first home court victory dating back to Oct. 20, 1977, a 3-2 win against Roberts Wesleyan. Wells also picked up their first victory over D'Youville in over 36 years, last edging the Spartans on Nov. 9, 1977 in a neutral site match at Nazareth.

Wells was overwhelmed by the Spartans in the first set, losing by a 25-15 margin, but rebounded to capture the next three frames (25-17, 25-22, 25-18). Freshman Anuhea Leite-Ah Yo (Hilo, Hawaii) recorded a team-best 12 kills in her first collegiate match while classmate Olyvia Brazier (Stony Brook, N.Y.) racked up nine kills on 36 total swings. Setter Taryn Heath (Truxton, N.Y.) assisted 28 of her team's 43 kills while Brazier chipped in a team-high 12 digs for the Express.

Leading by a 6-4 margin in the first set, D'Youville scored the next 12 points of the match to open up a 16-6 lead. As a team, Wells hit -.026 after committing seven miscues on 39 total attacks. D'Youville only needed eight kills on offense to secure the opening set win. Defensively, the Spartans accumulated 22 digs in the frame - Savannah Brayton led all players with seven digs defensively in the opening set.

Wells turned up the heat in the second set, rattling off three kills and taking advantage of a D'Youville service error to build a 13-8 lead near the midpoint of the set. From there, Wells saw five of its 14 second set kills come from Leite-Ah Yo and two crucial service aces from Brazier.

In the third set, Wells and D'Youville played to a 22-22 score after back-to-back service errors by the Express and the Spartans. A time out by Wells set up back-to-back kills from sophomore Meredith Kadjeski (Mechanicsburg, Pa.) and Heath to place the Express ahead by a 24-22 margin. The dagger came from senior Jessilyn Artaho-Aki (Kapa'a, Hawaii), who forced home a set-point service ace to grant her team the 2-1 lead in the match.

Despite a collective negative hitting percentage as a team in the fourth set, Wells was able to keep D'Youville at arm's length to secure their first victory of the season. The Express converted a match-high four service aces in the fourth and final set and utilized nine digs defensively to conclude the day.

D'Youville was led by Kendyll Smith's eight kills. Alyssa Dueringer set up 14 of her team's 32 kills while Brayton  and Cortlynn Catonia registered 16 and 14 digs, respectively.

Wells returns to action Saturday, Aug. 30 as they travel to the campus of SUNY Canton to face-off against Houghton and Potsdam St. with the first match beginning at 1 p.m.