ALLIANCE, OH – University of Rochester women's volleyball dropped a pair of contests to Marietta College and the University of Mount Union to open their 2024 season on Friday evening at the Mount Union Invitational inside the McPherson Academic and Athletics Complex.
 
MATCH ONE: Marietta 3, Rochester 0
Despite holding an early lead for much of the opening set, the Pioneers pulled ahead from down two, 9-7, with a 5-0 run to take a 12-9 lead on Emory Spitler's serve and force Rochester to use its first timeout.
 
Kills from Myla Nover-Estes and Ruby Moore helped UR out to an early, 5-3 advantage, and out of the timeout, a service error and service ace from Alexia Nelms pulled UR back within a point. However, Spitler's kill kept the Pioneers in the lead, before another Marietta run put the Pioneers up 20-14 and forced UR to spend its second timeout.
 
The Pioneers kept rolling, however, answering Rylee Bergeron's kill with three straight from Maggie Fellers, Mia Silva and Sophia Evans to setup set point, leading 24-15.
 
UR twice held off set point with kills from Ashley Cook, but Evans would clinch the set with another kill, one of 19 in the first set for Marietta, to take a 1-0 match lead.
 
Marietta kept their hot-hitting going into the second, rattling off another 17 kills as the Pioneers built an early lead. Trailing 6-5 after a service error, the Pioneers again got things going on Spitler's serve, scoring five-straight points to go up 11-5.
 
A few rotations later, Rochester clawed their way back, rattling off a huge run of their own with eight-straight points, seven of which came on Katie Westerheim's serve to turn a six-point, 13-7 deficit, into a 15-13 advantage.
 
Down 13-7, a service error gave UR the serve, and Westerheim and the 'Jackets took advantage of two more Marietta errors before Bergeron smashed three kills, the third of which gave UR a 15-13 lead.
 
Marietta came right back with an answer though, taking a 19-15 lead with a 6-0 run, before four-straight up 20-17 put the set out of reach. Two kills from Spitler gave the Pioneers a 23-17 lead, and while Nelms helped UR hold off set point with a kill from Lydia Weeks, Marietta finished off the set on a Rochester attack error to go up two sets to none.
 
The Pioneers then looked to put things away quickly in set three, racing out to a 20-11 lead. But out of a timeout, the 'Jackets regrouped and rallied, scoring nine-straight points on Iliana Balaskas' serve to knot the third set up at 22-all.
 
Kills from Bergeron and Moore helped power the 9-0 run, jumpstarted by a service error and ace from Balaskas. However, the Pioneers called a timeout to slow UR's roll and did just that, scoring the next points to finish off both the set and match, 25-22 and 3-0.
 
Individually, Bergeron led the Yellowjackets with 13 kills, while Balaskas notched a team-high eight assists. Defensively, Weeks earned nine digs with Balaskas and Bergeron each tallying eight, while Caroline Hoag had Rochester's lone block.
 
As a team, the 'Jackets hit just .121 in the three-set match, while the Pioneers hit .343 with 49 kills, compared to just 27 for UR.
 
MATCH TWO: Mount Union 3, Rochester 0
Bergeron got the Yellowjackets started and on the board in their second match of the day on a kill from Nelms, but after some back-and-forth play early on against the Raiders, Mount Union surged ahead and took a commanding lead in the opening set.
 
Back-to-back blocks by Alexis Meyer and Darby Leininger gave the Raiders a 7-5 lead they'd never relinquish, as Mount Union scored four of the next six points to give themselves an 11-7 advantage.
 
Bergeron and the 'Jackets kept things close with a pair of kills, but six-in-a-row from the Raiders on Heaven Bartell's serve made it an eight-point Mount Union lead. UR would get no closer than seven the rest of the way, as the Raiders downed kills for five of their final six points to pick up a 25-14 victory in set one.
 
Set two would prove to be much closer, with the 'Jackets matching Mount Union in the early going, taking advantage of three-straight errors to pull within two, 9-7, and later tying the set up at 10-all following Hoag's kill and a Westerheim ace.
 
The two sides went back and forth, with UR going up 13-12 on Bergeron's kill to force Mount Union to take a timeout, while Rochester answered Raiders' 5-1 run out of the timeout with three-straight points to level the set at 17 on Nover-Estes' kill from McKenzie McDonald.
 
The 'Jackets and Raiders stood tied at 17-all and again at 19-19 before Mount Union rallied for five straight, and while Nelms' kill pulled UR back within three, the Raiders scored the next two to take the set, 25-20, and go up 2-0.
 
Behind a pair of kills from Nover-Estes and Cook, Rochester held an early 6-4 advantage in set three, retaking the lead after two points from Mount Union on another Nover-Estes kill. However, the Raiders raced ahead, notching the next six points to take a 12-7 lead, and then added three more after UR pulled within three to go up 15-9.
 
The Yellowjackets twice pulled within four points down the stretch on kills from Cook and Nover-Estes, but the deficit proved to be too much to overcome, and the Raiders finished off the set and match with five-straight points to take the set, 25-16, and the match, 3-0.
 
Nover-Estes led the 'Jackets with 12 kills, while Bergeron added eight. Nelms tallied a team-high 10 assists, with both McDonald and Westerheim also contributing with eight and six each, respectively.
 
Defensively, Westerheim led UR with 15 digs, while Cook notched seven and three 'Jackets: Bergeron, Weeks and Nover-Estes, had seven digs apiece.
 
Overall, the 'Jackets tallied 31 kills compared to just 30 for Mount Union, but the Raiders out-hit UR, .165 to -.017, and totaled 11.0 blocks.
 
The Yellowjackets will look to bounce back and pick up their first win of the 2024 campaign when they wrap up the Mount Union Invitational with matchups against Albion and Denison on Saturday, Aug. 31 at 12:00 and 2:00 p.m. at the McPherson Academic and Athletics Complex.