Over the weekend, the Slippery Rock women’s volleyball team opened up Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) play with two games at Morrow Field House. Coming into the weekend, Slippery Rock held a 7-6 record in non-conference action.
The team squared off against the University of Pitt-Johnstown (UPJ) on Friday night and on Saturday the team faced the University of Lock Haven.
Head coach Laurie Lokash said the biggest difference between non-conference and PSAC play was the level of competition.
“The teams in the PSAC are better,” Lokash said. “Not that the teams in the non-conference games weren’t good, the PSAC teams are just better.”
On Friday night, UPJ traveled to Morrow Field House to take on Slippery Rock.
UPJ swept Slippery Rock in all three sets of the match. UPJ held control throughout with scores of 25-17, 25-19 and 25-16. Sophomore Beth Stumpf led the team with eight kills, and senior Leah Wilson followed with seven of her own.
Following Friday’s loss, Slippery Rock looked to rebound when Lock Haven came into the Morrow Field House on Saturday afternoon.
The team looked to do just that as they got off to a hot start in the first set of the match with a score of 25-20. The following set was in The Rock’s hands once again as they took the win with a score of 25-21.
Lock Haven would not go away; they kept knocking on the door and took the third set of the match 25-23. This would force an exciting game four. Slippery Rock held the lead and looked to close out the match, but Lock Haven tied it up 24-24 before taking the fourth game 29-27.
The fifth and final set was set up for Slippery Rock and Lock Haven as they battled it out all the way through with five ties occurring in the set. With the score tied 12-12, Slippery Rock captured the match scoring three unanswered points winning the fifth and final game of the set 15-12.
It was Slippery Rock’s first PSAC victory of the season and it was tightly contested throughout.
“We had our opportunities and sometimes we don’t do that,” Lokash said. “We definitely need to finish what were doing, and when we make a nice play we can’t follow it with something bad, we’re still working on establishing our consistency.”
Sophomore Beth Stumpf was a standout all weekend long for The Rock. She followed up her eight kills on Friday night with a team high 17 kills against Lock Haven. Junior Courtney Oberlander had a career high day with 42 digs in the win over Lock Haven.
With a record of 8-7 overall and 1-1 in the PSAC, Slippery Rock looks to carry things on to Shippensburg University where they will face off against The Raiders, who carry a 12-2 overall record and 1-1 in the PSAC.
