ROME, Ga. – The No. 20-ranked University of West Florida volleyball team defeated Gulf South Conference opponent Shorter 3-1 (28-26, 25-20, 13-25, 25-15) on the road Saturday afternoon. West Florida (11-2, 4-0 GSC) earns its seventh straight victory and has now won 21 out of 22 sets during its current winning streak.
 
"Today was important, I think whenever you are playing away from your home court you have to take care of business," head coach Melissa Wolter. "Team's tend to play better on their home court and Shorter pushed us to the limit today. At the end of the day, I'm happy we kept our composure after losing that third set. I thought we played very low-error volleyball in that fourth set and that put the pressure back on Shorter and helped us get the win."
 
UWF junior libero Tori Martella (Jacksonville, Fla./Providence HS) tallied 34 digs en route to breaking the four-set digs record at West Florida. Martella currently leads the GSC in digs per set (5.34) and ranks eighth on the career digs list at UWF.
 
"Shorter is a tremendous defensive team so we knew we were going to have to match them defensively," Wolter said. "Tori covered a lot of ground and kept us in a ton of rallies that allowed us to win big points that helped us win the match."
 
Martella took over the four-set digs record from her current teammate Autumn Duyn (Venice, Fla./Venice HS), who had a historic day defensively as well.
 
Duyn moved into second place on the career digs list at West Florida after tallying 17 digs in the win. The senior now has 1,288 career digs and is averaging 3.33 digs per set this season.
 
Duyn led the Argonauts offensively in the win with 15 kills at a .341 clip with only one attack error. Duyn also had three service aces and a block on the day.
 
"Autumn is a player that does so many things for us that don't show up on the stats, but the two things that you see a lot from her are the amount of points she scores and how many digs she has," Wolter said. "That is the epitome of an elite outside hitter, which she obviously is."
 
Junior Cora Bidlack (Randolph, N.J./Randolph HS) tallied 10 kills at a .360 clip in the win and also had a pair of blocks. Sophomore Monique StCyr (Williamsburg, Va./Jamestown HS) tallied 41 assists in the win with a service ace.
 
UWF will next face GSC opponent Mississippi College on the road on Tuesday, September 29 at 6 p.m. CT.
 
For information on all UWF athletics, visit www.GoArgos.com.