FAIRFIELD, Conn. – Fairfield University Volleyball ran off its sixth consecutive victory and remained unbeaten in the MAAC with Saturday's 3-0 sweep of visiting Quinnipiac on George Bisacca Court at Alumni Hall. Manuela Nicolini engineered an efficient Stags' attack with 41 assists en route to a .282 team hitting percentage.
 
Fairfield took the outing by set scores of 25-17, 25-22 and 25-21 to improve to 8-4 on the season. The Bobcats dropped their sixth consecutive match to move to 4-8 on the year on 0-3 in the conference.
 
Nicolini's primary target today was Mayda Garcia who set the pace with 16 kills hitting at a .359 clip. Garcia also picked up 11 digs to record her second straight double-double.
 
Joining Garcia in double figures was Laura Seeger with 10 kills, while Joelle Battles added nine on .368 hitting from the right side. The middle of the Fairfield rotation saw Kaylie Butts notch seven kills and Luci Albertson send home four. Sonja Radulovic and Julia Kallen chipped in swinging from the back row with one kill apiece.
 
"Manuela did a nice job distributing the ball and keeping Quinnipiac off balance and Mayda was steady as our L1 today both on offense and passing from all six rotation to help stabilize us from that position," said Head Coach Todd Kress.
 
Defensively, Morgan Doll shared the game high and matched her personal career best with 19 digs. In addition to Garcia's 11 from the back row, Radulovic fielded nine digs and Nicolini collected seven. At the net, Butts got a piece of five of the Stags' team blocks to retain her place as the MAAC's leading blocker with 49 in 47 sets to date. Albertson had a hand in four of Fairfield's rejections and Nicolini was a part of three send-backs.
 
As a unit, Fairfield entered the day as the conference's best defense and bolstered that mark today, limiting the Bobcats to .140 hitting. On the season, the Stags are holding opponents to a .179 clip, including just a .120 rate in their three MAAC matches.
 
To round out the Fairfield scoring, Radulovic served up a pair of aces and Nicolini landed one winner from the end line.
 
Quinnipiac was led by 10 kills from Aryanah Diaz, who neared a triple-double with nine assists and 19 digs. Nicole Migliozzi shared setting duties with Diaz and finished with 15 assists.
 
"Of course there are still some things we need to clean up," Kress noted, "But we'll take a day off tomorrow that get back at it next week to get ready for two conference matches over the weekend."
 
Next weekend sees a pair of MAAC opponents visit Alumni Hall. Fairfield will host Manhattan (2-11, 0-3 MAAC) on Saturday, Oct. 5 followed by a visit from defending conference champion Iona (1-12, 1-2 MAAC) on Sunday, Oct. 6. First serve for both contests is slated for 1 p.m.