Canton, NY - Although a few seeds of doubt may have been planted early when the Clarkson University Volleyball team fell behind early in Tuesday's Liberty League match against St. Lawrence, the Golden Knights took little time in asserting which team, at its core, was superior. With a wide assortment of offensive options and some impressive displays of defensive prowess, the Golden Knights peeled out of Burkman Gymnasium in just over an hour with a convincing 25-12, 25-12, 25-15 victory to improve to 14-0 on the season, and more importantly, 1-0 in the conference standings.

The Golden Knights will travel downstate to play three more conference matches this weekend, facing Bard College on Friday and then Vassar and RIT on Saturday. St. Lawrence, 8-7 on the year, will be on the same road trip.

In the first set, the Knights dropped the first three points, but with some solid serving from Nicole Edwards (Weiser, ID) and Lani Durio (Austin, TX), Clarkson took eight of the next nine points and never looked back. Down the stretch a similar run of eight points out of nine once again gave the Knights their easy win.

The second set was more of the same, as Clarkson won 15 of the final 19 points for another 25-12 victory. The third set was also never in doubt as Becca Brabec (Lemont, IL) began the game with seven straight points and enjoyed a 10-point lead at the midway point.

"Any match against St. Lawrence is a special one for us," said head coach Johan Dulfer, "but having lost twice in their gym last year made this one particularly important. We really wanted to come out strong and make a statement. I thought out serving effort today was extraordinary and really put St. Lawrence on their heels. We are happy with our first win in conference and excited about a tough weekend ahead."

Senior Sara Artus (St. Regis Falls, NY) struck for a team-best 12 kills, hitting .455 in the match. Junior Bailey Walker (Centennial, CO) was virtually unstoppable on the right side with nine kills and only one error in 11 swings for a .727 hitting percentage, to go along with three blocks. Brabec also added eight kills and a pair of service aces.

Sophomore Lani Durio also had two aces and ran the offense well, once again, with 34 assists. On the defensive side, Erika Chin (Katy, TX) and Kristen Orlandini (Fairport, NY) did their part to squash the Saints' rallies with 10 digs apiece.