Charleston, W.Va. – Notre Dame College volleyball struggled early on Friday afternoon, losing to Indiana University of Pennsylvania 3-0 but turned things around against Kutztown University 3-1, winning the final three sets of the day.

The Falcons (4-3) are now one win off of their 5-3 start in 2016. The Crimson Hawks (4-1) improve to 5-0 over Notre Dame, all time. The Golden Bears (2-4) lost both of their games on the first day of the tournament by a score of 3-1.

Game 1

NDC stuck with Indiana (Pa.) in the beginning before the Crimson Hawks took off. In the first set, an attack error put the Falcons within one point, trailing 5-4. However, IUP then scored the next five points. Another late 8-0 run put the Crimson Hawks up, 24-10, and they would go on to beat the Falcons, 25-11.

The next two sets were not much easier for NDC. The Falcons fell down 6-1 to start the set and then could not claw their way back into the game, falling behind, 17-5 at one point. They would lose, 25-13.

And in the third set, Notre Dame was able to come back from an early three point deficit to tie the game at 7. After a few runs by IUP, the Falcons could not keep up and lost the third set, 25-16.

Alexis Anderson recorded 13 kills and Gabby Egler had 11 kills for the Crimson Hawks. Ellie Burns and Natalie Cignetti both had eight digs. As a team, they had an unbelievable hit percentage of .425.

For Notre Dame, senior Melissa Maczuzak had 11 kills and sophomore Natalie Spadaro had seven kills.

"We just really struggled offensively the whole match. Mel (Maczuzak) was our most consistent attacker," head coach Troy Haught said. "Our defense was very strong against IUP. Ali really played well."

Game 2

After getting off to a hot 5-1 start over Kutztown, the Falcons saw the Golden Bears go on a 10-1 run. NDC put together a late 5-0 run to cut the deficit to three points, but Kutztown went on to win, 25-21.

Notre Dame began to turn the day around in the second set. NDC grabbed a 10-4 lead following a 5-0 run. During that run, sophomore Mary Kate McHugh and Spadaro each had a kill. As soon as Kutztown cut the lead down the two points, NDC went on another long run. They finished the set with a 4-0 scoring run, which started with three kills, one by sophomore Paige Staudacher and two by Maczuzak.

In the third set, Kutztown used three kills and a service ace to put themselves up 4-0. After a back-and-forth set, the Falcons again used a long run to win, this time, it was 5-0 run to break a 20-20 tie game.

Finally, in the fourth set NDC trailed 8-5. Notre Dame then put together an 8-0 run as they capitalized on Kutztown mistakes (four attack errors and two bad sets). KU did not go away and took a 23-22 lead late in the game on a kill by Brittney Moyer. Notre Dame shut the door and won the game by reeling off the final three points with a kill by McHugh and two kills by Spadaro.

Notre Dame's hit percentage rose to .166 in their second match. Maczuzak had 16 kills and 22 digs, Spadaro had 12 kills and sophomore Ali Kaeberlein added 24 digs.
For Kutztown, Sydney Wilson had 18 digs and Moyer had 17 kills and 16 digs.

"Our defense again was very strong," Haught said. "We served aggressively and our offense started to come alive. Mel played well again and Natalie and Lloyana (Hunter) really stepped it up. We still need to be more consistent but we are seeing things to build off of."

The Falcons will play Slippery Rock University at 10 a.m. and Shippensburg University at 4 p.m. tomorrow to wrap up the MEC/PSAC Crossover in Charleston W.Va.