The Lady Barons Volleyball team lost in their tri-match against Grove City College and Wesminster tonight. This marks their second and third matches in less than 24 hours. This grueling stretch is in preparation for the Lady Barons, who need to be familiar with a time crunch, to prepare themselves for the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference finals.

"You need to play through these things," Head Coach Kelly Herrmann said. "We schedule these matches back to back to prepare us if we make it to the conference finals."

FUS dropped their first game of the night against Grove City 3-1 (22-25, 22-25, 25-18, 20-25). It was a close game against a difficult opponent and the Lady Barons found themselves on the higher end of the stat sheet in assists (51-39) and kills (65-41) against Grove City. Unfortunately for FUS, they also had more errors than their opponent (29-15) and that ended up costing them the match.

Franciscan had a 16-10 lead in the first game but could not power out a victory. While the Lady Barons did pick up their play as the match progressed it was not enough to pull out a win.

"Our service was a little soft," Herrmann said. "We stumbled in that first game. We weren't passing well and when you don't do that you can become predictable. We got a lot stronger as the match went on and we figured things out but weak passing does not give your setters a lot of options on the court."

FUS was able to turn the table on Grove City in the third game as they stole a victory but could not handle them and were dealt their first loss of the night.

The Lady Barons kept it close against their challenging opponent and never gave up. Sophomore Middle Hitter Dani Link had 18 kills while Freshman Middle Hitter Ana Tolkach rounded out the team with 15 kills of her own. On the defensive side of the ball Sophomore Libero Sam Kelly had 27 digs.

Going into their second match of the night against Westminster the Lady Barons took an opportunity to play their starters against non conference competition. FUS lost in three (25-13, 25-12, 25-16) but were able to utilize their bench talent and prepare them for conference play in their potential post season.

"Westminster is a strong team," Herrmann said. "They hit well and they play strong defense. I was not disappointed in our loss because we worked on our experience. You never know when you are going to need them."

Sophomore Outside Hitter Christina Marie Lawrence (C-Mar) played in the libero position for the Lady Barons replacing Kelly who was sidelined to because of an injury she has been dealing with since the middle of the season. C-Mar was originally a libero in high school and was converted to a hitter by Herrmann and her team when she joined Franciscan.

"She played really well in that second match," Herrmann said. "At one point she jumped over the bench past the chairs in order to chase the ball. She completely sacrifices her body."

After only getting a few opportunities against Grove City, sophomore Outside Hitter Clare Prezzia was able to showcase her talents for the entire second match against Westminster. Freshman Middle Hitter Emily Baznik also came off the bench for FUS and dominated with eight kills and only one error for the entire match.

Although the Lady Barons walked out of the night with two losses they were able to showcase one of their most dangerous mental abilities; their positive attitude.

"I always tell the girls that they need to play positive no matter what," Herrmann said. "When you stat letting your attitude pull you down you are not going to play that well. I thought the fact that we stayed positive was really good."

FUS only has four more games left in the regular season with their next game against conference opponent Penn St.- Altoona. Franciscan will put the majority of the focus on their teams health going into the match in order to stay strong as they hope to enter the playoffs for the second year in a row.