Indiana, PA - The Lake Erie College volleyball team finished on the wrong end of a tightly contested five-set match against Daemen University on Friday afternoon at the Crimson Hawk Classic on the campus of IUP.
The Storm took the opening set 25-23, but the Wildcats would even the match with the same reverse score in the second. Daemen used that momentum to take the third stanza 25-16 before Lake Erie bounced back with a 25-13 victory in the fourth to force a decisive fifth set. Unfortunately, it was the Wildcats who prevailed in the race to 15, topping the Storm 15-9.
The Wildcats did a good job of keeping the Storm out of rhythm for much of the match, as LEC hit just .123 with 51 kills against 29 errors and produced just one service ace.
Allison Kirch had 18 kills in the setback, while
Sadie Nawrocki added nine finishes of her own.
Ni'yah Fuggs aided the attack with eight kills, while
Gabrielle Jones and
Kennedy Stewart totaled six each.
Kylie Anderson dished out 44 assists to go along with 13 digs.
Bella Kessler paced the back row with 26 digs, while Stewart (4) and Nawrocki (3) combined for seven block assists.
The Storm jumped out to a 14-7 lead to open set one, but the Wildcats fought back to tie the set at 20-20. Thankfully, the Storm responded with three straight points before finishing off the win on a kill by Stewart.
LEC grabbed a quick 6-2 advantage to start the second, but Daemen got back to level at the midway point of the stanza. A 5-0 burst from the Wildcats put them out in front 17-14, and Lake Erie would never lead again despite tying the set four times down the stretch.
After the Wildcats went relatively untested in the third, LEC responded in a big way, grabbing a 14-4 advantage and never looking back to cruise to victory in the fourth set.
Unfortunately, the Storm couldn't carry that momentum over into the fifth set to pull off the victory. With the set even at 6-6, Daemen scored six of the next seven points in the set to grab command at 11-7 en route to capping off the victory.
Lake Erie (1-3) will have two more matches tomorrow, starting at 9 a.m. against West Liberty before battling the host Crimson Hawks at 1 p.m.
Â
