The Covenant volleyball team continued its successful start to the season by claiming a straight set victory over new NAIA program Dalton State (25-23, 25-14, 25-15) on Friday night in Barnes Physical Education Center.
The win is the Lady Scots' (6-2) sixth in eight contests to begin the 2013 season. Dalton State falls to 1-5 on the year.
Chelsea VanDyk again led the Covenant attack as she accumulated 12 kills in 20 total attacks (.450 percentage) to go along with a pair of service aces. Stephanie Kirkpatrick had 28 assists and four digs. Freshman Mariah Corney led all players with eight digs.
The start-up Dalton State program hung with Covenant in the first set as the teams traded points throughout the game. With the score tied at 17 apiece, Covenant rattled off a 7-3 scoring run, capped by a kill from VanDyk, to take a 24-20 lead. Dalton would close the gap to 24-23 thanks to two straight kills and then a Covenant attack error, but the Lady Scots ended the set courtesy of a Dalton serve error.
The final two sets were controlled by Covenant. The Lady Scots had 10 kills in each of those sets including a .429 attacking percentage in the second set.
Dalton State was led statistically by Alyne Bianchi's 12 kills and six digs. Michala Askew registered 11 assists and five digs, while Kailey Vaughn had three block assists.
Covenant also received solid contributions from Cora Schroeder (eight kills and six digs) and Caroline Cone (five kills, .364 percentage).
Covenant will begin USA South play on Tuesday, Sept. 17 when they travel to face Maryville. Game time is set for 7 p.m.