Note: All statistics are unofficial. Official stats from Friday's games will be posted as correct information is made available by Friday's hosts.
 
CHARLESTON, W. Va. - The Slippery Rock University volleyball team split a pair of matches on day of the PSAC-MEC crossover Friday in Charleston, West Virginia.
 
SRU opened the day with a 3-1 (18-25, 25-17, 25-21, 27-25) loss to the University of Charleston before regrouping to sweep Urbana University 3-0 (25-21, 25-18, 26-24).
 
The split moves The Rock's record to 3-2 overall in 2019. Charleston's win against Slippery Rock pushes its record to 2-3 while Urbana falls to 1-4 with its loss.
 
Slippery Rock will close out its time at the PSAC-MEC crossover with two matches Saturday in Institute, West Virginia. Slippery Rock will first play West Virginia Wesleyan College at 10 a.m. followed by a 7 p.m. match against West Virginia State University.
 
Match 1: Charleston 3 – Slippery Rock 1
Slippery Rock took the opening set from the host Golden Eagles 25-18, but could not overcome a 25-17 loss in the second set as Charleston went on to take the third and fourth sets 25-21 and 27-25 for the 3-1 win.
 
Unofficially, Abigail Koeller had a team-high 16 kills in the loss with three blocks and a .324 attack percentage. Fellow freshmen Sophie Varndell and Abigail Nigon were both credited with four kills as well. Nigon also tallied a team-high five blocks.
 
Slippery Rock served 12 aces Friday. Jalyn Willard posted a Rock-best four aces while Koeller, Stephanie Jacobsen and Zoe Rivet all totaled two aces apiece with Gabby Huck and Lauren Webster registering one ace each.
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
Set 1: The Rock and Golden Eagles opened the first match of the PSAC-MEC crossover by trading points and playing out to a 7-7 tie before Slippery Rock produced four consecutive points to take an 11-7 advantage and force a Charleston timeout. SRU and UC continued to go back-and-forth, but with SRU leading 21-17 The Rock registered four of the next five points to pull away with a 25-18 win.
 
Set 2: Trailing 8-4 to start the set, Slippery Rock fired off an impressive 9-5 run to even the set at 13-13 only for the Golden Eagles to take five of the next six points to re-take the lead at 18-14 and force a Slippery Rock timeout. The timeout did little to squash the Charleston momentum as UC closed the set on a 7-3 run for a 25-17 match-evening win.
 
Set 3: Charleston got out to an 8-6 advantage in the third set and Slippery Rock could never quite find its footing as UC took the set 25-21.
 
Set 4: Slippery Rock seemed poised to push the match to a fifth set after blazing out to an 8-1 lead to start the fourth. However, Charleston slowly chipped away at the lead before eventually tying the contest at 10-10. From there, the two teams traded points with Slippery Rock clawing its way to a slim 21-20 lead that forced a Charleston timeout. The Golden Eagles proceeded to score four unanswered points out of the break to take a seemingly safe 24-21 advantage. Undeterred, SRU battled through several match points to push the set to a 25-25 tie. However, Charleston survived The Rock's late barrage to score the final two points of the set for a 27-25 win.   
 
MATCH 2: Slippery Rock 3 – Urbana 0
Slippery Rock salvaged the day with an impressive 3-0 (25-21, 25-18, 26-24) win against Urbana to exit Charleston, West Virginia with a split.
 
Huck was credited with a match-high 16 kills and two aces in the win. Logan Whitaker supplemented Huck's performance with 10 kills of her own to go with 20 assists and four blocks. Koeller and Varndell rounded out The Rock's kill leaders with eight apiece.
 
In addition to passing out 23 assists, Rivet served a team-high three aces. Willard paced the defense with 31 digs. Koeller, who also was credited with three blocks, made 26 digs of her own in the victory.
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
Set 1: A 4-0 run early in the set proved to be the difference in the opener. With the match tied at 8-8 SRU rattled off four unanswered points to take a 12-8 advantage. The Blue Knights kept the game close and even tied it on two occasions, but The Rock ultimately pulled away down the stretch to claim a 25-21 victory.
 
Set 2: Slippery Rock jumped out to a 15-6 run to open the second set and never looked back en route to a convincing 25-18 triumph that pushed SRU one set away from completing the sweep.
 
Set 3: Urbana successfully erased an early four-point Rock lead to tie the final set at 7-7 before the two sides exchanged points for the majority of the set. However, Slippery Rock was able to finish off the Blue Knights by accounting for five of the set's final eight points for a 26-24 sweep-clinching win.
 


To stay up to date with all that happens at The Rock, follow our official athletic communication accounts on Twitter (@Rock_Athletics), Facebook (RockAthletics), Instagram (RockAthletics) and Snapchat (@RockAthletics).