Bradford, PA. -- The University of Pittsburgh at Bradford women's volleyball team hosted first-place Penn State-Altoona on Saturday afternoon, falling to the Lions 3-0 on Senior Day.
Prior to the start of the action, the Panthers celebrated their two graduating seniors, Summer Anderson and Morgan Frishkorn. Anderson has played 39 matches and 87 sets totaling 83 kills, 42 total blocks, 18 aces, and 48 digs. She has a .155 hitting percentage. Frishkorn is in the midst of her only season with the Panthers, while she also played 1 season at Butler County Community College. For her career with both programs, Frishkorn has tallied 37 matches, 123 kills, 65 digs, 30 total blocks, and 19 aces.
Pitt-Bradford had a slow start in the opening set, as the visitors quickly jumped out to a 15-3 lead. Jenna Louser put down a kill to end a 6-point service run and started a rally that saw the Panthers claw back into the set. Trailing 17-7 Baylee Fitzsimmons served the Panthers to 7 straight points to cut into the lead. Marissa Bowman and Summer Anderson each had a pair of kills in the rally. After the Lions struck back for three points, Pitt-Bradford scored another six in a row to whittle the lead down to 1 point. The visitors broke the rally and exchanged side-outs with the Panthers until they closed the set at 25-22.
The Panthers got off to a much better start in the second set and took an early lead. After the Lions scored four straight to take a two-point edge, the Panthers answered with four-in-a-row of their own. They used three errors and a Ruby Smith kill to go back up by two. Pitt-Bradford was unable to maintain the momentum and saw their opponents take six of the following 7 points. Trailing 16-12, the Panthers scored three straight to get back to within one point, but could not close the set strong, as Penn State-Altoona scored 9 of the final 11 points of the set to win it 25-17 and take a 2-0 lead in the match.
Needing a win in the third set to extend the match, the Panthers once again had a slow start. They quickly fell behind 5-1 and then saw the lead grow to 12-4 after a 5-point run from the guests. After the run ended on a service error, Pitt-Bradford began erasing the lead, slowly cutting the deficit down to 4 points after a double block from Smith and Louser put the Panthers down 18-14. That was as close as the Panthers would come to erasing the lead, as the Lions were able to close out the set at 25-18.
Summer Anderson led the Panthers with 7 kills. She hit .316 in the match and added an assist, 4 digs and 2.0 blocks. Alyssa Radtke had 23 assists in the match. Four different Panthers reached double figures in digs in the match. Kayla Maslowski led with 18, while Dylan Amic finished with 14, Marissa Bowman had 13 and Baylee Fitzsimmons added 10.
The Panthers are now 4-17 on the season, with a 1-4 record in AMCC play. They will be back in action on Thursday, October 26th, when they host Wells in their last home match of the regular season. It is scheduled to begin at 7:00 p.m. in KOA arena.
