“We played an incredibly efficient offensive match,” UCF head coach Todd Dagenais said “Sunday road wins are hard to come by. The team is excited about what we’ve done so far. I’m feel like we deserve to be where we are at this point.”

After trading points to open the match, UCF broke up a 6-6 tie with a kill from sophomore Kia Bright and took an 8-6 lead on a service ace from sophomore Shelby Foyer. Senior Jade Hayes served up an ace to give the Knights a 10-7 lead and prompt a Cincinnati timeout. The Bearcats came back to tie the set at 16, but a 5-0 UCF run that included kills from seniors Kaye-Alese Green and and junior Abbie Fleener extended the Knights’ lead to five, 21-16. The Black and Gold closed out the opening set with back-to-back blocks from Bright and Sarden to win the first set, 25-18.

The Knights opened the second set with three straight points. A Sarden kill pushed the UCF lead out to 15-9, which Bright followed with an ace to give the Knights a 16-9 lead. The Bearcats battled back, matching the Knights kill for kill to cut the lead to three, 24-21, in favor of UCF. Cincinnati’s Madi Lang tied the set at 25, forcing the set into extra points. Green’s kill was answered with a kill from Emma Roberson to tie the set at 27, but Bright came up with a kill that gave the Knights a 28-27 lead. Bright teamed up with Sarden for a block that gave UCF the 29-27 set win and a two-set lead in the match.

In the third set, Sarden gave the Knights a 2-0 lead before Cincinnati came back to knot the score at 4-4. A kill by Green put UCF up 11-7 and forced a timeout for the Bearcats, but the Knights kept the momentum out of the huddle with a block from Green and Fleener. After giving the Knights a 16-11 lead with a kill, Sarden went back to serve, putting together a string of three points to push the UCF lead to 19-11. Bright slammed consecutive kills, which were followed by back-to-back Cincinnati attack errors that gave UCF the 25-15 set win and the straight set victory over the Bearcats.

“There are still some things that we need to work out,” Dagenais said. “This wasn’t a great all-around match. We were able to buckle down when we needed to. Where we are as a team–mentally, the effort, the energy, the perseverance–is everything I could ever ask for as a coach.”

DeLaina Sarden finished with 16 kills on 19 swings. Her .789 hitting percentage is the sixth-best percentage in a match in UCF history. Sarden also had five blocks and three digs.

“DeLaina found ways to get herself into gaps and the setters found ways to get her the ball,” Dagenais said. “This could be the best offensive match I’ve seen her have; she was outstanding in her decision making. I think she put up national player of the week numbers.”

Kia Bright joined Sarden with double-figure kills, finishing with 13 while hitting .440 and recording five blocks. Senior Marie Reiterova posted her second straight double-double match, recording 24 assists and 10 digs. Jade Hayes posted a match-high 11 digs for the Knights, and junior Dana Faught tallied 20 assists for UCF.

“I’m proud of the team for going 4-0 and not dropping a set along the way,” UCF head coach Todd Dagenais said. “I thought we were remarkable at closing out sets all weekend.”

FIU was not going to hand the title to UCF, as the Panthers jumped out to an early 10-5 lead but a 6-1 run from the Knights put UCF on top. The Knights took the lead for good on a block from seniors Kaye-Alese Green and Ashley Gialenios. Once UCF took the lead in the second set, they maintained it and persevered in the final set to become tournament champions.

UCF had four all-tournament selections, as senior middle blocker DeLaina Sarden, senior libero Jade Hayes, sophomore outside hitter Kia Bright and sophomore outside hitter Jale Hervey received the accolades.

Hervey led the Knights against FIU with 14 kills, while hitting .565 and serving up a team-high five aces. Hervey took home the tournament MVP honors, as she finished the weekend with 60 kills, 24 digs, and seven digs while hitting .481.

Bright added 12 kills and finished the match with eight digs. Hayes tallied double-digit digs for the fourth time this season, finishing with 13. Senior Marie Reiterova and junior Dana Faught had 17 and 15 assists, respectively.

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Looking for an encore to her AVCA All-American sophomore campaign, Sarden took her game to new heights in 2013. The Lawrenceville, Ga., native set career highs in kills, kills per set, attack percentage, service aces, solo blocks and points. Sarden led The American with a .409 attack percentage and 494 points while ranking fourth in kills per set (3.41) and ninth in blocks (1.05). She was also honored as the league’s Player of the Week three times.

“I don’t think it’s a surprise to anyone involved with UCF volleyball that DeLaina was a unanimous first-team selection,” Dagenais said. “Her numbers are on par with athletes being considered for All-American honors. She was a stronghold of our offense all year despite being often double-teamed. The numbers that she put up were absolutely remarkable for the situations she was hitting in. Being the overall leader in points and hitting percentage for this league as a middle is quite remarkable and that makes her worth of additional honors as we get into the awards part of our season.”

Crump finished just behind Sarden with 386 kills. The Atlanta, Ga., native finished her UCF career with 1,489 kills, the most in UCF history during the rally scoring era. Green led the team with 126 combined blocks and joined Sarden as the only players to start every match this season. Reiterova led The American with 11.39 assists per set and had a career-high 13 double-doubles. Hayes came up with 530 digs in her first season with the Knights, second most in program history for a single season.

“I think that the other four athletes receiving second-team honors ended up exactly where we thought they should be,” Dagenais continued. “When you have that many players on a second team, that’s a credit to the balance of your squad. If we featured just one or two players offensively, we’d have had more first team players, but our philosophy is balance. Balanced teams often find it difficult to put additional players on the first team.”

With their conference awards in hand, the Knights will now look at AVCA national awards. Region awards will be announced Tuesday, Dec. 10 with All-America teams coming Wednesday, Dec. 18.

Earlier this season, UCF topped the Bulls (13-11, 7-3), 3-0, on Sept. 27 in front of a record crowd of 1,669 fans at VolleyBowl VI. Friday night’s match was a tightly-contested contest as USF took the Knights to the limit in the first and third sets. However, the Black and Gold’s defense was just too strong as it tied a season-high with 14 blocks while also winning the dig battle, 62-60. The Knights hit well below their season average at just a .162 clip, but responded well by holding USF to just a .101 mark.

“This is one of those matches we’ve prepared for all year long,” UCF head coach Todd Dagenais said. “This was a match that started off with two teams being nervous. I thought we settled in a little bit quicker than they did and we were able to put pressure on them and create some of their errors. The important thing for us is that we were on the road against our arch rival who’s ahead of us in the standings and we handled the pressure of those circumstances extremely well. This was the same type of match to what we had in Houston, but we learned from that experience and applied it to tonight.”

Junior DeLaina Sarden had a monster two-way game as she racked up 13 kills on 24 swings for a .458 attack percentage. The Lawrenceville, Ga., native also picked up a season-high 9 total blocks. Sarden was backed offensively by senior Angelica Crump who blasted 13 kills of her own while shouldering the heaviest offensive load on the team with 47 attempts. Junior setter Marie Reiterova dished out 32 assists while chipping in eight digs and four block assists.

“We were very specific during timeouts with what we wanted to do when we went back out on the floor,” Dagenais said. “Any time we were able to run a set play, or communicate what we wanted our players to do, they went out and executed and I give our team a lot of credit for clearing their minds during timeouts and applying the instructions we gave them.”

Senior defensive specialist Roxy Mendez tied a career-high with a team-best 15 digs while chipping in a service ace. Junior libero Jade Hayes assisted Mendez on the back row as she extended her double-digit digs streak to 18 after digging out 13 attacks. Freshman Taylor Gallart got in on the act defensively with a career-best three block assists.

The Knights get a full week off before heading back out on the road for a pair of conference matches against Rutgers at 7 p.m. next Friday followed by a Sunday matinee at 2 p.m. against UConn.

The Knights (13-4, 4-0 The American) overwhelmed the young Bearcats (0-18, 0-5) with a strong defensive effort, holding Cincinnati to just a .086 attack percentage. It was the first time since Aug. 31 that UCF held an opponent under a .100 hit percentage over a full match.

“Tonight was as complete of a road match as we’ve played all year,” head coach Todd Dagenais said. “We played really well and controlled the match from beginning to end. We got everybody involved at a high level. For us to be able to hang with the likes of Louisville and the other top teams in this league, we have to be balanced and keep teams guessing. We can’t just depend on one or two hitters. Tonight we made a concerted effort to be as balanced as we can be. I thought Dana (Faught) executed our game plan perfectly.”

It was a all-around effort offensively for the Black and Gold as no player recorded double-digit kills, but five players registered at least six. Senior Angelica Crump led the way with nine kills, increasing her team lead to 232 on the season. The Atlanta native now has 1340 career kills, fifth-most in school history and the second highest total in the rally scoring era.

Thursday night was also an opportunity for freshman middle blocker Taylor Wickey to gain valuable experience after working hard all season in practice. Wickey got her number called for the first time this season in the third set and responded by clinching the sweep for the Knights with the match-ending block.

“Putting Taylor in a match has been something that’s been on our mind for two or three weeks,” Dagenais said. “We’ve been waiting for her to get enough experience and enough confidence in practice to be able to insert her in a key spot. In some rotations we really think we can gain an advantage with Wickey as a blocking specialist. You can’t teach 6’4” with good feet, good heart and good drive and she has all of those qualities.”

Junior libero Jade Hayes picked up 12 digs, extended her double-digit streak to 12-consecutive matches. Freshman Taylor Gallart showed off her two-way ability with six kills and eight digs while junior Loren Cory provided punch at the net with seven kills and four block assists. Junior Kaye-Alese Green shined in the middle with six kills and five block assists. In her first season as a full-time starter, Green leads the team with 70 combined blocks.

UCF gets the next two days off before returning to action on Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m. against conference-leading Louisville at the KFC Yum! Center. Sunday’s match will be televised live on ESPNU with Melissa Lee and Nell Fortner on the call.

The Black and Gold, wearing pink uniforms for breast cancer awareness, held the Scarlet Knights (4-13, 0-3) to a .140 attack percentage on the match. The Knights’ defense got better as the match went on, limiting Rutgers to hit percentages of .100 in the second and .050 in the third frames.

“I think any win in conference is a quality win especially when you consider we played two teams this weekend we had never seen before in person,” UCF head coach Todd Dagenais said. “Once we figured out how Rutgers was trying to attack us, we made some adjustments with our serving and overloaded some of our blocks. Rutgers is way better than their record. They hung in there and the first and third sets could have gone either way.”

Sophomore setter Dana Faught got the nod to start for the second-consecutive match and she responded well with 34 assists, 11 digs, three block assists and two service aces. It was the second-straight double-double for the Round Rock, Texas, native as she registered a 49 assist, 12 dig effort in Friday’s victory.

“I want to give a lot of credit to Dana for her efforts this weekend,” Dagenais said. “Dana has worked really hard to put herself in a position to contribute when called upon and she deserved an opportunity to get some playing time. For her to out there and grind out two wins for us this weekend, that’s what a team player has to do. I’m really proud of her, her effort and her composure. We have all the confidence in the world in Dana and this weekend proved why.”

The Knights were led offensively by junior middle DeLaina Sarden, who blasted 10 kills and hit .421 for the match. Sarden was backed by freshman Taylor Gallart, who also recorded 10 kills and eight digs. Defensively, junior libero Jade Hayes extended her double-digit digs streak to a season-best 11 matches with a match high 16.

The crowd of 1,669 broke the all-time attendance record of 1,603 that the Knights (10-4, 1-0 The American) set in the 2009 season, also against the Bulls (6-9, 0-1) in VolleyBowl II.

“First and foremost, we have to give a big thank you to the marketing and event promotions group that put this event together and allowed it to have such a great atmosphere,” head coach Todd Dagenais said. “I think that absolutely carried us to victory. A great atmosphere can be worth three to four points every set and you look and we won by three points all three sets.”

Three Knights recorded double-digit kills, led by senior Angelica Crump who smacked 15. Backing up Crump were juniors Loren Cory and DeLaina Sarden who registered 13 and 10 respectively. Junior setter Marie Reiterova had a huge three-set double-double, dishing out 42 assists (14.00 per set) and digging out 16 shots (5.33 per set). Junior libero Jade Hayes continued her excellent play on the back row, extending her streak of double-digit digs to nine matches.

“Tonight was pretty cool,” Hayes said. “I wasn’t expecting there to be that much intensity in the UCF-USF rivalry, but it was really great. I’m glad we got our first conference win in our first try to get off to a great start.”

VolleyBowl VI provided an interesting challenge for UCF as a team. The Knights formula for success in non-conference play was to attack at a high percentage and generally outscore opponents in run and gun, offense dominated contests. With both teams hitting under .200 for the match, the Black and Gold had to really give a grinding defensive effort to win which it did as the Knights topped USF in digs, 60-43.

“This was the kind of match that I want,” Dagenais said. “I’m a blocking and defense, grind it out, score when you can kind of coach. That’s how you win in conference play.”

UCF gets a full week off before returning to action next Friday at 7 p.m. against UConn at The Venue.