Geneva College Athletics

Beaver Falls, PA – Geneva's volleyball team started fast on Tuesday night with an impressive effort in a first set victory against Hiram. However, the Golden Tornadoes couldn't maintain their momentum as the Terriers stormed back to take the next three sets in a 3-1 (21-25, 26-24, 15-25, 18-25) decision. The loss was Geneva's fifth straight and dropped its overall record to 2-8. Meanwhile, Hiram improved to 7-3 on the season.

Following Geneva's first set victory, the Golden Tornadoes seemed primed to take a commanding two sets to zero lead late in the second stanza. Needing one point to win the second set, Hiram was able to fend off that set point and ultimately scored the final three points of the set to narrowly even the match with a 26-24 second set win. Following the tough second set loss, the wind went out of the Geneva sails and Hiram was able to cruise to victory the rest of the way.

Erica Hughes, honored tonight for being the ninth player in school history to reach 1000 kills last weekend, once again led the offense with 14 kills on the night. Daphne Hunsinger picked up 21 assists in the loss. Defensively, Geneva got 19 digs from McKenna Shick.

"We had a really strong block going in the first set," said head coach Wendy Smith. "It just became not existent for the rest of the match. We are a young team and I don't like making excuses because we simply have to get better. We are actually very close to getting over the hump but we just need to learn how to play a full match and put teams away when we get the chance."

Geneva will get back into the comfort of the PAC tomorrow night when it travels to Chatham University to put its 1-0 conference record on the line. Geneva won't return to Metheny Fieldhouse until September 28^th for a date with Saint Vincent.