DEARBORN, MI - Behind the efforts of freshman middle blocker Ye Wang (Beijing, China/Hachioji Jissen High School), the Daemen Wildcats swept their two games today as part of the University of Michigan-Dearborn Early Bird Classic, besting Spring Arbor (MI) and Lourdes (OH) in straight sets.  The Wildcats took care of Spring Arbor to open their day (25-22, 25-16, 25-20) before closing against Lourdes (25-22, 25-12, 27-25) as Wang put down a team-best 27 kills combined.

"Ye was real solid today," said seventh-year head coach Mark Parisi.  "Her and Kaley Vazquez were a good combination for us throughout. Kaley played real well at setter and made good decisions on where to put the ball."

Vazquez, a sophomore from Kenmore, NY, led the Daemen setters with 22 and 19 assists, respectively, in the two matches.  Senior Kimmie Mack (Livonia, NY/Livonia High School) added 25 combined assists as well.

"We played with the lead for a lot of the match against Spring Arbor," Parisi noted.  "That allowed us to play with confidence and it was good to be in control for the entire match."

Joanna Fretthold (North Tonawanda, NY/North Tonawanda High School) and Katie Auge (Salamanca, NY/Salamanca High School) combined for 33 digs in the win over Spring Arbor.

"We played steady again against Lourdes.  We were also able to get a lot of our newcomers some time so it was nice to see them in action and playing well," Parisi said as he managed to shuffle in 15 players throughout the match.

Aiding Wang in the kill category was Fretthold who had nine to go with seven more digs.  Also, sophomore Jenn Karan (Orchard Park, NY/Orchard Park High School) combined with Wang for four kills in the waning moments of the match to lead a Daemen comeback in the third set.  Karan finished with six kills for the match.

Auge was strong again defensively as well, leading the squad with 17 digs.

Next up for Daemen is a real test against Indiana University-East who is currently ranked as the top vote getter outside the top 25 in the pre-season version of the Tachikara-NAIA National Poll.  IU-East won the Ramada Plaza Tournament held at Grace College (IN) last week, in which Daemen finished third.  That match gets underway at 10:30am before Daemen faces the Northwestern Ohio at 12:30 to close out their portion of the Classic schedule.