GRANVILLE, Ohio - Lady Baron volleyball entered one of the most challenging weeks of their season with a loss to Denison 3-1. FUS (4-7) kept up with the Big Red (8-3) for the first two games of the match but service errors piled up against the Lady Barons who couldn't pull out a win.

Franciscan lost their first game 21-25 but answered back with a 25-22 victory. Shortly after, FUS dropped their next two games 12-25 and 13-25. Franciscan has put a lot of focus on mental awareness due to their young roster. Over the past four games FUS has demonstrated strong court vision and mental comprehension but were dealt a loss after losing focus after the second match.

"We played really well in the first two games but that's not going to win the match," Head Coach Kelly Herrmann said. "In the third game Denison served really well and we had some uncharacteristic service errors and we got in our own heads a little bit."

Going into this game, Franciscan wanted to swing for the fences against a towering Big Red opponent. Playing with nothing to loose helped the Barons keep confidence and start strong as Herrmann instructed her girls not to be passive.

"We just wanted to go for it," Herrmann said. "We wanted to hit and serve aggressively and we did that. When you play aggressively like that you are prone to more errors but you cannot give them easy balls or else they will punish you."

Sophomore Samantha Kelly helped stave off of much the punishment for the Lady Barons with 20 digs while playing in front of her family who had flown from Nevada to surprise her.

"Sam played extremely well," Herrmann said. "She is still a little sore coming off of injury and we were not sure how long we were going to keep her in but she played the entire match with a lot of intensity."

Herrmann was not the only coach on the court to take notice of Kelly. Big Red Head Coach Lynsey Whisner came over to Herrmann after the game to compliment her libero's play.

"Their coach came up to me at the end of the match and told me how impressed with Sam she was," Herrmann said. "She was even more surprised afterward to hear about her injury."

Freshman middle hitter Ana Tolkach also demonstrated an aggressive attitude against Denison by earning four kills, four digs and ending the second game with a victory for her team after serving the final six attempts.

"Ana is serving with a lot of confidence right now," Herrmann said. "She has the ability to change the pace of her serves which is a big advantage for us. She also played strong defense and passed the ball perfectly all night."

Franciscan will look to put all of the pieces together for a road rematch against their season opener opponent, Muskingum, on Sept 18 at 1 pm.