River Forest, Ill.- Concordia-Chicago returned home for the first time in twenty-three days to play in front of a vibrant crowd on jersey night.  The Cougars came into the night hoping to build on their good start beginning a stretch of five straight home matches with four of them being Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference matches.  Concordia-Chicago came out clicking all over the floor to down Marian in three sets (25-18, 25-20, 25-19).

Beginning of the first set, both teams were really evenly matched with neither team really taking full control.  However, the Cougars really turned it on midway through the first set behind the strong play from freshman Jennifer Livesay to give CUC a 14-9 lead and force a Marian timeout.  Concordia-Chicago continued the momentum after the timeout with back to back kills from Jaylynn Johnson to give the Cougars their largest lead of the set at six.  Marian's attack errors couldn't get them back in the set as the Cougars took set one 25-18.

Early in the second set it was all Concordia-Chicago.  Outside of a Shannon Stamp kill, the Sabres had four straight attack errors to give the Cougars a 7-2 lead.  The Sabres came right back within two with this time CUC having multiple attack errors.  The Cougars quickly got it right back and extended their lead to five on a Johnson kill and an assist by Nicoletta Crowley that gave her 2,000 assists in her career and moved her into third place all-time in Concordia volleyball history.  CUC continued to apply pressure on the Marian defense, Austin Thompson came in supplying two kills to put the set out of reach with the Cougars earning a 25-20 win.

Much like the first set, the third set was more back and forth play with the match tied at 8 led by Crowley's two service aces.  Concordia-Chicago then grabbed control of the set when the Cougars rattled off four straight points with two service aces by Alexa Lomantini and two more attack errors from the Sabres to force a Marian timeout.  Again, the timeout didn't matter for the Cougars as they continued to play well and capitalize on the Marian mistakes to take set three 25-19 and the match 3-0.

Johnson led the Cougars with 15 kills with only 6 errors on 27 attempts for a .333 hitting percentage and contributing 2 block assists.  Livesay followed that up with 8 kills with 1 error on 20 attempts for a .350 hitting percentage.  Crowley managed 3 kills, 32 assists, 4 service aces, 6 digs, and 1 block assist to go along with her moving into third place all-time in assists and play one of her best matches of the year.    

The Cougars (15-7, 3-2 NACC) return to action tomorrow for a double header when they to host Lakeland University and Mount Mary University.  Matches are set to begin at 12:00 & 3:00pm.