COLUMBUS – The Franciscan volleyball team dropped a 3-1 match to Capital to wrap up a six-game road trip to begin the season.

The Lady Barons battled their way to a 25-21 win in the opening set as junior Juli Buehnerkemper served seven-straight to give the Barons a 23-19 lead after being down 19-17. After a kill from freshman Roz Pridemore gave the Barons their first set point, Capital committed a hitting error to give the Lady Barons a 25-21 win.

"It was a good all around match," remarked head coach Kelly Herrmann. "We dug ourselves in a hole in each set and had to fight back but it was a good game. The girls played hard and didn't get discouraged."

The Lady Barons battled back and forth in the second set but Capital came away with a 25-23 win to even the match, 1-1.

The Crusaders took the last two sets, 25-22 and 25-19 to close out the 3-1 win.

"We are not there yet and it's going to take sometime but the girls played relaxed tonight and it was a better match than we have seen. We have been working on being more aggressive with our serve and we saw that come together tonight." 

Senior Mary Moore led the Lady Barons with 11 kills and hit .276 for the match while sophomore Maria Ciola and Moore each had 14 digs.

"Mary is a very talented all-around players. She came in her freshman year as an outside and it took her a while to get back to that mindset. She is very strong and tonight was a really good match for her," complimented coach Herrmann. 

"We are still missing Maddie (Raffa) and hope she will be back soon, but Becca (Haven) and Rachel (Potopa) are doing a great job setting. For this not being our ideal lineup, I felt like it was a good match."

The Lady Barons will play their first match in front of their home crowd on Friday when they host Chatham at 7:30 pm at the Finnegan Fieldhouse.