MILWAUKEE, Wis. – Kleja Cerniauskaite and Ari Miller combined for 34 kills to help lead the Milwaukee volleyball team to a sweep of Oakland University on Monday's Senior Night.
 
"I'm so proud of our team because we really came out tonight and performed well with what we did in practice all week," head coach Susie Johnson said. "We worked on resilience and fighting to the finish and we did that tonight. As a coach, what you hope for is to keep growing, learning, and getting better and I think we are."
 
The 18 kills are a career-high for Cerniauskaite, who hit .394 for the match. Miller added 16 with a .500 attack percentage.
 
The duo got it going early for Milwaukee, combining for 14 kills without an error in the first frame to put the Panthers on top 1-0 with a 25-20 victory.
 
In the second, errors started to pile up for MKE as Oakland climbed used a 5-1 run to jump on top late 21-16.
 
The Panthers fought back, however, and pulled ahead 24-23 after another Cerniauskaite kill and a pair of aces from Sarah Schrader.
 
The two battled to six ties the rest of the way before Miller slammed home back-to-back kills for a 31-29 set win.
 
The third frame was a battle, but the defense stood up with 21 digs, holding the Golden Grizzlies to just eight kills.
 
Tied 17-17, two Oakland errors and a Miller kill put the Panthers in front by three and MKE never looked back, rolling to the sweep.
 
"The block was way better tonight so we did a much better job of defending," Johnson said. "That was another focus this week and I was happy we executed that."
 
The Panthers led the dig column 63-48 over Oakland thanks to a team-high 18 digs from Rylie Vaughn and 14 from Jess Grabowski.
 
Schrader played an all-around solid match with seven digs, three assists, three aces, and two kills.
 
"I was so impressed with Sarah," Johnson raved. "She kept us in system all game. I'm really proud of her especially considering she just is coming back from knee surgery and is playing at a really high level."

Milwaukee and Oakland meet again to close the series tomorrow at 2:00 pm from the Klotsche Center. Live coverage can be found on MKEPanthers.com.