SAULT STE. MARIE, Mich. - The Saginaw Valley State University women's volleyball team were victorious in their final match of the regular season by defeating Lake Superior State University today (11/6), 3-0. The Cardinals finish the regular season with a 17-9 record overall and a school best 15-4 in the GLIAC, while the Lakers fall to 8-19 overall and 5-19 in the conference.

The Cardinals jumped out to an early 15-10 advantage over the Lakers in the first set. Lake Superior bounced back and cut the deficit to one but SVSU prevailed 25-22 with a key block setup by Annie Buxton and Becky Schroeder.

In the second game, Saginaw Valley took a quick 8-2 lead which swelled to 21-9. However, the Lakers fought back to close the deficit to 23-19, but Lake Superior made two critical service errors and the Cardinals went up 2-0 in the match with the 25-22 victory.

The Cardinals were in a back-and-forth battle in the third set as they took a slight 16-15 advantage at the midway point. SVSU went on to an 8-2 run to sweep the Lakers 25-17.

The Cardinals were led by senior Becky Schroeder (Owosso, Mich./Northwood University) who earned Chili's "Player of the Match" honors with a team-high 12 kills on 18 attacks for a .667 hitting percentage. Senior Annie Buxton (Aurora, Ont./Aurora SS) posted 11 kills on seven digs and five block-assists, while junior Sam Breault (Bad Axe, Mich.) finished the match with 32 assists and eight digs. Senior libero Laura Ward (White Lake, Mich./Lakeland HS) finished with a team-high 15 digs in the victory.

The Cardinals have clinched the third seed in the 2011 GLIAC Volleyball Tournament and will host the No. 6 seeded Grand Valley State University Lakers on Thursday (11/10) at 7:00 p.m. inside the Cardinal Gym.