SOUTH EUCLID, Ohio – Notre Dame College jumps out to an early lead in the first set, but Urbana University ultimately defeats the Falcons, 3-0, on Tuesday.

Notre Dame (16-14, 8-6 MEC) grabbed a big lead early on, after taking advantage of Urbana's mistakes. NDC went ahead 11-4 as Urbana was tagged with five attack errors, two service errors and a bad set. The Falcons had two kills and an ace during that initial run.

Urbana (21-9, 10-4 MEC) closed the gap to two points, 16-14, before junior Mary Kate McHugh stopped the run for moment and put the ball down for a kill. However, UU then put together a 10-2 run which included eight kills by the Blue Knights. Urbana would eventually win the first set by a score of 25-21.

"In the first set, they took advantage of our block," said head coach Travis Hinkle. "Our block wasn't there all the way, it really didn't follow through the way it needed to. In the second set they got better, in the third set they got better."

The momentum continued to swing the way of the Blue Knights as they pushed ahead to a 10-1 advantage in the second set. After NDC closed the gap to 10-6, with a 5-0 run, UU quickly advanced their lead up to eight points, 17-9. They continued to put up points and won the second set, 25-15.

Notre Dame nearly put together a comeback in the third set. Down 8-5, the Falcons went on a 10-4 run and grabbed a 15-12 lead. In fact, following back-to-back-to-back kills, Notre Dame led 21-17 in the set. Urbana responded with a 7-2 run and after an ace, they owned the match point, 24-23. NDC got one more point on an attack error, but Urbana closed the set and won, 26-24.

"Urbana is a good team and we knew they would come out with a strong game plan of playing very tough offensively," Hinkle said. "They took advantage of our block, they took advantage of us getting out of place. But that's something we can definitely learn from especially with two tough conference matches coming up to end the season and then going into conference tournament. We need to learn from this and know that we need to be mentally tougher, we need to execute and we need to learn to finish sets."

McHugh led the Falcons with 11 kills and junior Paige Staudacher totaled 24 assists. Junior Alexandra Kaeberlein had 18 digs while sophomore Roberta Jokubauskaite and freshman Lizzie Willis each had three blocks.

Urbana's Lexi Reinert led the team with nine kills while Deandra Atwood and Anna Davis each had 20 assists. The Blue Knights had three players with double-digit digs. Hannah Delor led the team with 18 digs and Madison Davis added four blocks.

The Falcons will travel to West Liberty University on November 2. The match is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m.