Led by outside hitter Taylor Lewis, the St. Thomas volleyball team got off to a fast start Wednesday night, cruising to a 3-0 victory over Hamline at Schoenecker Arena.

The Pipers never held a lead the entire match and became the second Tommie opponent this season to fall in straight sets. Defensive specialist Jennifer Wild said coach Thanh Pham told the team to “have fun and play St. Thomas volleyball.”

The Tommies did just that. St. Thomas (7-8 overall, 2-2 MIAC) came out of the gates hot, easily took the first set 25-10 and rolled through the next two sets, winning 25-13 and 25-19.

After losing two conference games at home over the weekend, the win over Hamline (7-8 overall, 1-2 MIAC) comes as a relief to Pham.

“Huge monkey off our back,” he said. “We’ve been practicing extremely hard and I’m really proud of how the kids responded after a couple tough losses last week.”

Lewis was happy to finally get the team’s first home victory of the season.

“We’ve been waiting for it for a while,” she said.

The Tommies’ performance improved noticeably compared to recent games. Pham said the difference came from improved passing.

“I think our girls were able to relax a little bit more than Hamline; and again, it came down to passing, and we just passed better,” Pham said.

Lewis lead the team with 10 kills while outside hitter Brooke Reichart had nine. Defensive specialist Maggie Krieger led with 13 digs. Freshman setters Rebecca Hawkins and Katharine Mallak had all but five of the team’s assists, tallying 18 and 14, respectively.

St. Thomas travels to second place Gustavus on Saturday for its next MIAC game.

Jack Burke can be reached at jtburke@stthomas.edu.