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The Lee volleyball team earned its third conference victory of the season as it swept past Union University, 3-0 on Tuesday evening inside Walker Arena.

The Lady Flames pulled out a close first set by a 25-23 margin before rolling to victories of 25-15 and 25-11 to close out the Lady Bulldogs.

 "We focused on ourselves this week in practice and didn't worry so much about who were playing," remarked head coach Andrea Hudson. "We wanted to clean up some of our mistakes from earlier in the year and we were able to accomplish that tonight."

Freshman Silvia Sartori led the team with eight kills while adding two blocks and sophomore Erin Hill continued her comeback from a nagging injury to pitch in six slams and a pair of service aces. Freshman Hillary Hoffpauir led the team with 14 assists in the contest and also posted two aces.

"We have a strong setter family," said Hoffpauir after the match. "Sadie and Haley cheer me on and I cheer them on and we all work really well in the rotation together."

When asked about her success serving Hoffpauir noted, "Well I just go back there and we talk about working on making them move and serving tough.  I go back there and take a deep breath before each serve and just put it where I'm supposed to put it and hopefully it works out and tonight it did."

Sadie Johnson added six helpers and two aces to the winning effort. As a team the Lady Flames recorded nine aces, five blocks and 25 kills.

Ceciley Blanchard and Abby Schebel had four kills each to lead Union. Hannah Huguley set things up with 13 assists and eight digs while Casi Neff added four blocks.

The victory moves the Lady Flames to 7-6 on the season and 3-5 in the Gulf South Conference. With the loss the Lady Bulldogs fall to 4-10 on the season and 3-5 in league play.

Lee will head to conference front-runner Shorter University on Thursday. The Lady Flames will return home on Saturday for a 1 p.m. matchup with Mississippi College.

"Shorter is a tough place to play and they are playing really well right now but we'll be up for the challenge," concluded Hudson. "They are an exciting team to play against and it will be good for our younger players to play in that kind of an environment."