Noah Fries | sports editor

Despite falling behind Dayton 2-0 in Tuesday’s “Pink Out” match, the Duquesne volleyball team continued to battle and rallied all the way back — stunning the Flyers with a reverse sweep and giving the Dukes their first victory over Dayton in nearly 13 years.

“I think resilience is a really good word to describe our team,” freshman right side hitter Simone Searles said. “We could’ve just rolled over after losing those first two, but instead we chose to work harder and that says a lot about who we are as people and as a team.”

The win boosted the team’s record to 16-7 overall and 7-5 in conference play.

The Dukes also improved to 10-2 at UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse this season, tying their highest home-win total since 2016 and doing so in front of a sea of pink.

“I think it says a lot having those people there,” freshman middle blocker Maddie Bush said. “Having the Acro team there and all the fans there was just a really cool environment, so to be able to provide such a good game gives them energy and they give it right back to us.”

The first set went back-and-forth, as neither team had a lead greater than four throughout the set. Dayton jumped out to a 12-8 lead and kept using short bursts to lead 22-18 before a 5-0 Duquesne run from graduate libero Delaney McIntosh, who gave the Dukes their first lead of the set since 4-3.

After a Dayton timeout, Duquesne had a set point before the Flyers grabbed four of the next five points to take the set 27-25. Both teams committed at least seven attacking errors in the set.

The second set was almost a mirror image of the first, as Dayton jumped out to an early lead and held on until Duquesne went on a run late to tie the set at 22. The set went to extra points once again, but the Flyers got back-to-back kills from senior outside hitter Kamryn Hunt to push the Dukes to the brink.

With the Dukes having their backs against the wall, the blocking aspect of the game came out when they needed it most. Duquesne tallied six blocks in the set, including two in extra points, while the team fought off two Dayton match points to go on a 3-0 run and steal the set 28-26.

As soon as Bush and Searles combined for the block on the final point of the third stanza, there was an obvious shifting of the tides of momentum inside the Fieldhouse.

“We were sluggish in the first three sets,” Head Coach Steve Opperman said. “We had to battle back, but that’s what our kids have been doing — they’ve been battling. As we got going in set four, things started clicking a little bit more, and I think our kids felt more and more confident.”

The fourth set was all Duquesne, as the Dukes jumped out to an 11-3 lead and never looked back. The defense held the Flyers to a .000 hitting percentage in the set (nine kills to nine attacking errors) while the offense hit .195 (12 kills to just four errors) to push the match to the decisive fifth set.

The final frame was back-and-forth to start just like the first three sets, as the teams were knotted at nine in the set to 15. Feeding off the crowd’s energy, the Dukes rattled off six straight points — punctuated by two kills from junior outside hitter Emersen Schrom and another block from Bush and Searles — to clinch an improbable comeback victory.

Searles led the way for the Dukes with 22 kills while adding 16 digs. Freshman outside hitter Londyn Stone tied her career high with 17 kills and Schrom tallied 14 kills and a career-high 23 digs. Bush’s 12 total blocks were just shy of a program record for a five-set match.

McIntosh recorded her first career double-double with 21 digs and a career-best 11 assists, while senior setter Chloe Wilmot quarterbacked the offense with 53 assists and added 17 digs.

“It’s so awesome, and it makes my job really easy,” Wilmot said of the team’s depth. “I can set any of my hitters — pins and middles — and I have confidence in them in scoring. I don’t have any doubt in my mind of any of them and their abilities, so that’s awesome.”

The Dukes fell twice to Davidson over the weekend in hard-fought matches on the road, falling in four sets Saturday and in five sets Sunday. Despite the two defeats, Duquesne sits fifth in the A10 with a 7-7 conference record with four more regular-season conference matchups looming.

Noah Fries can be reached at friesn@duq.edu