BRADFORD, Pa. – The University of Pittsburgh at Bradford women's volleyball team dropped a tough five-set match against Penn State-Behrend in an Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference matchup at the KOA Arena Tuesday.
"Tough loss at home in a match that we prepared really hard for," Head Coach Tom Roof said. "We let it slip away. We had the match point in the fourth set, but we couldn't get the game winner. And when it goes into the fifth set, it's a short game and anything can happen. We aren't covering our hitters enough. We hit into the block way too much tonight, and that ended up in a lot of points for them.
"I thought our defense played pretty well against them," Roof continued. "But, Behrend is a good team. They're a conference champion and they're very experienced. We just didn't get it done tonight."
With the setback, Pitt-Bradford moves to 4-2 in AMCC action and 14-12 overall, while Penn State-Behrend advances to 6-1 and 15-9 overall.
Behrend came out strong, grabbing the convincing win in the first set, 25-14.
But the Panthers battled back in the second set.
Behind eight kills from Riley Anderson, the Panthers rode a .295 hitting percentage to a 25-20 victory in the second set.
Set three was much of the same, as the Panthers put together their best set hitting at .321 as a team.
Anderson, Emily Cleveland and Katie Treat each had three kills in the set and the Panthers just made a single hitting error.
Defensively, the Panthers got five digs apiece from Laura Hildebrand and Payton Orzech, and a pair of assisted blocks from Alexandra Segura to hold off the Behrend attack and win, 25-17, to take a 2-1 set advantage.
The two teams put together a competitive, back-and-forth set in the fourth.
The Panthers had Behrend at match point on two separate occasions, but the Lions were able to dig deep and pull off a 27-25 win to extend the match and force a decisive fifth set.
Riding the momentum, Behrend won the set convincingly, 15-6, to earn the match victory.
The Lions blocked four Panther attack attempts in the set and knocked four kills on 13 attempts.
Anderson led the Panthers with 17 kills and Cleveland was close behind with 16.
Orzech assisted 43 of Pitt-Bradford's 50 total kills, and she added four kills of her own.
Defensively, Hildebrand led the team with 26 digs, while Orzech (16), Anderson (15), Alexis Constantino (13) and Alayna Seggi (10) were also in double-figures.
Anderson and Orzech each recorded double-doubles.
At the net, Segura led the team with five blocks assisted while Treat assisted four. Elizabeth Johnson had three solo blocks.
Up next, Pitt-Bradford will head to Pitt-Greensburg for an AMCC road match Saturday.
