The Slippery Rock University women’s volleyball opened their season by dropping three of their four matches at the Millersville Marauder Clash tournament this past weekend.
The Rock was handed a pair of 3-1 losses by Adelphi University and LIU-Post on the first day of their trip to Millersville.
In the match against Adelphi, the Rock lost in four sets by scores of 28-30, 25-22, 18-25, and 19-25.
Sarah Beals led the team with 11 kills, 10 digs, and one block. Morgan Tyree had nine kills and two blocks. Sarah Cadwallader contributed eight kills, three digs, and one block.
The match against LIU-Post later in the day was nearly the same, with the Rock losing again in four sets by a scores of 24-26, 25-21, 17-25, and 21-25.
Hannah McShea led the effort with 19 digs and three service aces.
Beals had another eight kills, 18 digs, and one block. Caroline Houston added an additional six kills and 10 digs.
On day two of the Marauder Clash tournament, The Rock went up against Holy Family and Dowling University.
In their match against Holy Family, The Rock won in a 3-0 sweep by scores of 27-25, 25-23, and 26-24.
Tyree led the team with 10 kills while McShea had 20 digs and one ace.
Houston had seven kills and eight digs of her own.
After the great game against Holy Family, the Green and White fell to Dowling University in three straight sets by scores of 25-18, 25-11, and 25-18. Tyree led the team again with seven kills.
The Rock split the day and finished the weekend with a 1-3 record to start the year.
Head coach Laurie Lokash thought that the team played pretty well at the tournament, but not as well as they thought.
“Our defense was good, but we couldn’t finish each match well enough,” Lokash said. “The sets were tight, and we need to focus on finishing better.”
Lokash thinks that part of the reason that the team has started 1-3 is because the teams this year were much better than last season.
“Last year, the teams were pretty weak and we got off to a great start, but this year the teams seemed a lot more decent,” Lokash said.
Cadwallader believes that the rocky start wasn’t such a bad thing for the team.
“It’s a starting place for us,” Cadwallader said. “Now we know what we have to work on in order to win and have a better outcome overall.”
The Rock will look to bounce back this weekend as they travel to Clarion University for the Clarion Classic.
They start the day off with a match against Shepherd University.
