PITTSBURGH, Pa.—Improvement was a theme for the Lady Barons in their match against non-conference opponent Carnegie Mellon despite losing in straight sets 26-28, 19-25, and 15-25.

"Offensively, we were challenging them," Head Coach Kelly Herrmann said.  "We were moving the ball around. We passed well. We were serving well. They were making weak passes off of our serves when we weren't serving aces, so that's a good stat for us."

The Lady Barons started the match off strong with two service aces from sophomore setter Rachel Potopa and the team finished with five aces overall on the night.

"Carnegie Mellon won the toss before the match and elected to receive," Herrmann said. "They wanted Rachel to serve at them. It was a personal challenge to her, and starting off the match with two aces was awesome."

Herrmann said that since the Lady Barons were the underdogs in the match, the first set was especially important. She challenged her hitters to be aggressive to start the match, and senior setter Amy O'Keefe answered with a team-high six kills on the night. Junior outside hitter Dani Link also added five kills of her own with some of her best line-hitting of the season.

"Dani's strength is hitting line," Herrmann said. "She hit the line beautifully; the defense was nowhere around. Dani also hit some balls from the back row really well tonight."

Link was a well-rounded component of the game, contributing defensively and in serve, adding six digs and two aces to her five kills. Herrmann was pleased that Link took most of the balls in serve receive on the night and was able to handle the increased workload.

"It is nice to see her bounce back from a weak serve receive game," Herrmann said. "They went at her purposely because they saw her errors in the La Roche match, and she handled it really well."

Making fewer errors has been area of improvement for the whole team during the season.

"Errors are a part of the volleyball match as much as anything," Herrmann said. "Sometimes errors are what determine a match. Sometimes they are more significant in a win or a loss than the good plays are. You can't overreact to those plays."

The Lady Barons will continue working towards improvement when they resume conference play at home against the University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg on October 22 at 7 pm.