BUFFALO, NY – The Franciscan women's volleyball team dropped a pair of matches at the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference quad match, hosted by Medaille, Saturday afternoon. Franciscan fell to Penn St.-Behrend (3-0) in the first match before dropping a 3-1 decision to Medaille in the final match of the day.

After dropping the first match in straight sets to Behrend by scores of 25-16, 25-13, 25-12, the Lady Barons rebounded for a strong first set against Medaille. After tying the first set 14-14 the Lady Barons took the lead 17-16 and eventually led 21-19 thanks to a kill from Marykate Taylor (Cadillac, MI/Cadillac Senior). The Mavericks came back and tied the set at 22-22 and took the lead 24-22. Franciscan got a kill from Monica Moore to get a sideout but the Mavericks closed out he set with a kill from Jessica Muse to win 25-23.

"I am just really proud of how the girls rebounded after a tough loss to Penn St.-Behrend," remarked head coach Kelly Herrmann. "We came back and played better against Medaille. We were right there in game one, had a little let down in game two, but came back and won game three. We again were right there in that last set, but we made a couple bad mistakes at the end.

"I tell the girls, we have to keep getting better with each match and I think we did that today," continued Coach Herrmann.

The Lady Barons trailed 14-4 early in the second set and the Mavericks kept Franciscan and cruised to a 25-13 win to take a 2-0 set lead.

After trailing 11-7 in the third set, the Lady Barons stayed composed the used three-straight points to close the gap to 11-10. The two teams went back-and-forth for the never four points until Franciscan used a 6-0 run to take an 18-14 lead. The Lady Barons maintained the lead for the rest of the set and closed it out with a kill from Moore and a freshman Emma Birong (Carrollton, OH/Carrollton) finished the set with a block to give Franciscan a 25-20 win.

The fourth set played like the first and third, tightly contested by both teams with neither able to pull away for a large lead. After tying the set 19-19 with a kill from freshman Emily Nutter (Newark, OH/Newark Catholic), the Lady Barons found themselves down 21-19 after two straight from Medaille. Franciscan battled back and eventually tied it 22-22, but the Mavericks closed out the set and match with three straight points to win 25-22.

"We are playing excited, fired up, positive volleyball," said Coach Herrmann. "We have some work to do but we have been putting a lot of pressure on a lot of freshmen and we can only grow and get better from here."

Nutter finished the day with 46 assists and 13 digs while senior Maria Ciola (Burk, VA/Mother of Divine Grace) paced the Lady Barons with 16 kills. Moore posted 20 digs between the two matches.

The Lady Barons look to rebound on Monday as they host Bethany (WV) in a non-conference match at 7:00 pm.