HUNTINGDON, Pa. - The Messiah women's volleyball was defeated by Juniata College and Itaca today in the ASICS Invitational. The loss drops the Falcons to 1-6 on the year. They are back on the court next Tuesday Sept. 12 in their home opener against Alvernia University at 7:00 p.m.

Match One: Messiah 0, Swarthmore 3 (23-25, 18-25,16-25)
Strong Start, Errors Costly
The Falcons jumped to an early 7-3 lead as a result of errors by the Garnets and with the help of kills from Braedyn Gallagher and Ellen Musselman. However, Swarthmore was quick to respond and did not let Messiah pull away easily. With the score 11-7 in favor of the Falcons, the Garnets scored eight-straight points to take a 14-11 advantage. Not long after they extended their lead to five 17-12 and forced Messiah to take a timeout.
 
Late in the set the Falcons kept battling and trailing 23-19 made a run scoring three points to pull within two, but the Garnets answered with a kill. After Messiah scored a point a kill from Olivia Leventhal earned Swarthmore the 25-23 set one victory.
 
Messiah got off to another quick start in the second set scoring five points to take a 7-2 lead, but Swarthmore responded with nine points in a row to take the 11-7 advantage. From that moment, the Garnets stayed in control and the Falcons struggled to find a consistent rhythm. Trailing 16-12, they scored two points off kills by Jennifer Rusling and Lanae Hunsberger to cut the lead 16-14.
 
Later down 21-17, the Falcons tallied a point off a service error, but the Garnets utilized two kills, a service ace, and an error by the Falcons to win set two 25-18.
 
Set three started off very much like the first two sets with Messiah scoring early and jumping ahead but Swarthmore had a response at every point. A pivotal moment in this set was most certainly mid-way through when the Falcons were trailing 11-9, a kill from Kate Preudhomme shortened the gap, but the Garnets answered by tallying five-straight points to take a 16-10 lead. It was difficult to recover from that and while Messiah kept fighting they never did cut the lead trailing by as much as seven at one point. Swarthmore went on to win the third and final set 25-16.
 
Errors were once again a factor in tonight's contest and Messiah struggled to be consistent on offense finishing with just a .28 attack percentage. They will be back on the court tomorrow when they play two matches, the first against Juniata at 11:00 a.m. and finish the day with Ithaca College at 3:00 p.m.

Match Two: Messiah 0, Juniata 3 (20-25, 16-25, 16-25)
Braedyn Gallagher led with seven kills, Jennifer Rusling tallied 19 assists, and Amanda Dahlman had 13 digs.
 
Messiah jumped to an early start getting ahead 4-0 after a kill and three errors by Juniata. Later with the set tied at seven, the Falcons tallied three points in a row to take the 10-7 advantage.
 
The Falcons played very competitively and strong early on but a turning point came midway through. Leading 13-12, the Eagles scored three points to take their first lead of the set. From there Juniata stayed in control, even when Messiah pulled within one 20-19, four-straight points by the Eagles pushed them farther ahead and then a final kill gave thme the 25-20 victory.
 
Messiah struggled early in the first set falling behind 5-1 but responded in a big way tallying four points to tie the game at five. Lanae Hunsberger and Kate Preudhomme provided kills in the scoring run. Juniata recovered and again later widened the gap 9-6, but the Falcons kept pressing and tied it up again at nine. However, the Eagles in turn scored four points to pull ahead by five.
 
The scoring gap remained with Messiah falling behind by as much as seven 19-12 and while they had their turns of scoring points, they ended up losing set two by a score of 25-16.
 
In the third and final set, the Falcons had their bright moments such as when trailing 8-4 a four-point scoring run tied the game at eight that included a kill fro Braedyn Gallgher an done from Jennifer Rusling. Later in the set, with Messiah down by just two, Juniata took advantage of some errors to pull ahead 17-9. Unfortunately that momentum shift led to the Falcons falling in the third set 25-16.


Match Three: Messiah 1, Ithaca 3 (18-25, 19-25, 26-24, 21-25)
Kate Preudhomme and Alycia Park-Ferretti led the team with eight kills and Jennifer Rusling tallied 31 assists. Amanda Dahlman once again put forth a strong peformance on defense finishing with 17 digs in the match. The Falcons finished with 40 kills and 59 digs as a team.