Springfield, Mass. – September 20, 2011 – Lauren Torvi pounded out 16 kills at an .842 clip to lead the Springfield College women’s volleyball team to a three-game sweep of visiting Clark University in New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) play on Tuesday evening. The Pride cruised by the scores of 25-10, 25-9, 25-19.

The win moves Springfield to 11-0, 3-0 in league play as the Pride are now off to its best start since 2003. The Cougars fall to 4-5, 1-2 with the loss.

Springfield entered today’s match recently ranked 25th in the nation in this week’s AVCA National Poll. Torvi dominated the match with 16 kills on 19 errorless attempts to go along with four blocks. Tessa Smolinski added nine kills hitting .412 while Whitney Miller handed out 25 assists in two sets. Itza Nieves totaled a match-high 10 digs, and both Mary Consol and Meaghan Hart added three aces.

For the Cougars, Arima Trachell finished with four kills and seven digs to lead the way. Kortney Kelly added eight digs as Clark was limited to just 11 kills for the entire match and hit -.101.

As a team, the Pride hit a blistering .450 in the opening stanza behind four kills from Torvi. Clark evened the set early at four, only to have Springfield open up a 5-1 spurt capped off by a Nieves ace to force the visitors into a timeout. Springfield’s lead grew to seven on several occasions, the last coming at 15-8, before the Pride poured on a 6-0 run to put the opening stanza out of reach. Melissa McLaughlin closed out the set with her third kill of the game as the Pride took it 25-10.

The second set couldn’t have started off any better for Springfield as it raced out to a 16-1 lead and never looked back. Hart served 15 straight points for Springfield and Torvi connected for seven kills on nine swings to pace the hosts en route to a 25-9 win.

In the third and final set, the teams were tied at nine all before Torvi punctuated a 5-1 burst with another kill to force Clark into a timeout. A Kaitlyn Stuck ace got the Cougars within four at 20-16,ut the Pride was too strong and McLaughlin closed out the match with a big swing from the left side.

Springfield will now prepare to play in the MIT Invitational this weekend. The Pride will kick off play versus Regis at 4:00 pm on Friday before taking on Williams at 8:00 pm.