STEUBENVILLE - Franciscan volleyball began a four-game stretch of nonconference play with a tough five-set loss to the Capital Crusaders 18-25, 25-20, 25-16, 18-25 and 8-15.

The Crusader's came into the evening with a 4-18 record and 0-3 in the OAC, which is traditionally a tough conference. Therefore, the Lady Barons were not going to overlook Capital, knowing it was going to be a tough game.

"When you look at this Capital team, when I looked at their information, I thought they were a beatable team but not a weak team," head coach Kelly Herrmann said. "Their conference is a tough conference, tougher than our teams. We are competitive with a lot of very tough teams. We're having some successes along the way. I thought that we played okay. They obviously hit the ball really hard but we did a lot of things well."

The match was a match of runs with the Crusaders jumping out to an early lead in the first four sets, making Franciscan battle for every point.

"That's kind of the game of volleyball a lot," Herrmann said. "You can't be the team who gets down early in every game. Eventually that just takes a lot of gas out of you. We have to start better in games, be more focused and limit those runs early and not dig ourselves a big hole."

After losing the first set and down early in the second set, Franciscan was able to battle back to take a 18-11 lead before Capital made of run of its own. The Lady Barons were able to prevail, winning the set 25-20.

The third set started in the same fashion with the Lady Barons down early 8-3. Herrmann called a time out and inspired the team to win the next four points, bringing the set within one point. A few points later, the Franciscan went on an 11-point run to take a 19-10 lead with the serve of senior libero Samantha Kelly. The senior finished with three service aces and 22 digs in the match.

Another huge part to the 11-point run were the attacks of senior outside hitters Dani Link and Christina Lawrence. Lawrence led the team with 12 kills and Link was not far behind with 10.

"Christina always seems to be kind of fearless," Herrmann said. "Sometimes it's almost like being oblivious to pressure. Cmar wasn't always that way, she worked herself into it. She hits the ball off the block and through a lot of blocks."

Herrmann added, "It's really nice to see Dani with some of her huge kills in that third game in particular that really put us over the top. That's the Dani we need to see on the court and that's the Dani that will help us win the conference championship."

The fourth and fifth sets belonged to the Crusaders, however, as the team began to retake control in the match, especially taking advantage of Lady Baron mistakes and miscommunications in a crucial fifth set.

"What we talked about after the match was that they are going to earn their points but we can't give away points," Herrmann said. "We gave away a couple points in that fifth game and that made the difference."

After the game, Herrmann also encouraged her girls to be fearless in their play and to continue to build confidence, not allowing mistakes and losses to dwell especially late in the season.

"It's a marathon, not a sprint," Herrmann said. "The last couple of weeks are what matters the most. We've had success there before and I believe we'll have success again."

The Lady Barons will have five days off before returning to Kuzma Court to host the College of Wooster Fighting Scots on October 14 at 7 p.m.