OREM, Utah – The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) volleyball team won its seventh-straight match by beating Utah Valley University (UVU) 3-1 (24-26, 25-21, 25-12, 25-21) on Thursday at Lockhart Arena.
 
This is UTRGV's (10-7, 4-0 WAC) longest winning streak at the NCAA Division I level since winning seven-straight from Sept. 12-26, 2003.
 
At 4-0, UTRGV is now off to the best conference start in NCAA DI program history.
 
This was UTRGV's first win in 17 tries at UVU (7-12, 2-2 WAC). UTRGV has now won four of its last five contests against UVU.
 
Junior Ragni Steen Knudsen and senior Bojana Mitrovic each posted their fifth double-doubles of the season. Knudsen recorded a season-high 22 kills on .354 hitting with 13 digs while Mitrovic finished with 15 kills with a season-high tying 15 digs. Sophomore Barbara Silva recorded a career-high 19 kills on .359 hitting with three digs and four blocks. Junior Alexandra Ecker recorded eight kills on .400 hitting with five blocks. Junior Dubravka Vukoja dished out a career-high 58 assists with two kills, two aces and eight digs. Junior Gysell Zayas finished with 24 digs.
 
Lexi Thompson led UVU with 15 kills and 12 digs. Alexis Davies finished with 13 kills and five blocks.
 
After dropping the first set, UTRGV jumped out to a 5-1 lead in the second set on the power of a pair of Ecker kills. UVU responded with an 8-3 run to take the lead, but a Mitrovic kill sparked a 7-3 run to put UTRGV back on top at 15-12. UTRGV extended its lead to 17-13 on an attack error before UVU came back to tie the set at 20. Mitrovic and Silva answered with two kills each as UTRGV won five of the final six serves to tie the match.
 
UTRGV scored the first seven points of the third set en route a 10-1 lead. UTRGV pushed its lead into double-figures at 13-3 on an ace by freshman McAllen alum Kellie Woodin. UVU got as close as 8-15 before Knudsen and Silva each came up with a pair of kills to help UTRGV go on a 10-4 run to end the set.
 
UVU jumped out to 10-3 lead in the fourth set. Kills by freshman Veronika Jandova and Mitrovic started to turn the tide, though, as UTRGV went on a 14-4 run to take a 17-14 lead. UVU came back to take a 20-19 lead, but a Jandova kill tied the set and the Knudsen recorded three-straight kills and kills on five of the final six serves to end the match.
 
UTRGV looks to pick up its eighth-straight win for the first time since winning nine in a row from Oct. 4-Nov. 2, 2002, on Saturday at 3 p.m. at Seattle U.

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