ERIE, Pa. – The Slippery Rock University volleyball team continued its push towards the postseason Friday with quality four-set Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Western Division victory on the road against Mercyhurst University.
 
Following a 25-20 opening-set loss, Slippery Rock rebounded with 25-19, 25-12, 25-22 victories to capture the win.
 
Friday's win was the third in Slippery Rock's last four matches, improving its record to 11-15 overall and 6-7 inside the PSAC West. Mercyhurst drops to 3-19 overall and 1-12 inside the PSAC West following the loss.
 
Erica Selfridge provided The Rock with a 17-kill, 13-dig, 10-assist triple-double in the win in addition to tallying three blocks and serving one ace all the while compiling a .282 attack percentage. Selfridge's triple-double is just the seventh by a Rock athlete since 2004.
 
Supplementing Selfridge's big night on the attack was Alayna Chizmar with eight kills and Abigail Koeller with seven.
 
SRU produced nine aces against the Lakers. Maria Lucas and Jaeden Yost served four and two aces, respectively, with Selfridge, Koeller and Kate Lachendro each adding one. Yost also distributed 23 assists.
 
The Rock's front line turned in a great outing in the match as SRU had 11 total blocks. Mary Berger finished with five rejections (0 solo / 5 assisted), followed by Nigon with four (1 solo / 3 assisted) and the trio of Chizmar, Selfridge and Koeller all sporting identical three-block (1 solo / 2 assisted) stat lines.
 
Lachendro added to the defense with 20 digs while Koeller (15) and Lucas (12) joined her and Selfridge with double-digit dig totals of their own.
 
For the match, Slippery Rock held advantages over Mercyhurst in kills (41-40), attack percentage (.112-.070), aces (9-8), blocks (11-9) and digs (76-70).
 
The Lakers captured the opening three points of the night and while Slippery Rock did answer back to tie the set at 7-7, Mercyhurst eventually stretched its lead out to eight points at 16-8.
 
The Rock battled back from the deficit to cut the Lakers' lead to as little as three points on three separate occasions before making one final push to get to within one point at 21-20. However, MU was able to withstand the charge and eventually finish off the set with a 25-20 win.

With the score tied 8-8 in the second set Slippery Rock rattled off four straight points, two of which came on aces from Lucas, to take a 12-8 advantage it would never relinquish in a 25-19 match-evening triumph.
 
Mercyhurst once again had a strong start in the third set with four straight points only for SRU to completely erase the deficit. With the score tied 10-10, The Rock registered the following four points capped off by a Nigon block to pull ahead 14-10 and force a Laker timeout. The break in action did little to hinder SRU as The Rock closed out the set 25-12.
 
Slippery Rock once again found itself trailing early in the fourth set after the Lakers took seven of the first nine points.
 
However, as was the case all match, SRU once again overcame the early setback by rattling off seven consecutive points later in the game to take a 17-14 advantage only for the Lakers to come up with a big run of their own in the form of five straight points, re-taking the lead 19-17.
 
Coming out of an SRU timeout, The Rock dominated the remainder of the set by outscoring Mercyhurst 8-3 down stretch en route to a match-deciding 25-22 win. Selfridge was responsible for two kills and an ace over the final spurt.
 
Paige Miller paced Mercyhurst with a double-double of 17 kills and 17 digs in the loss.
 
Slippery Rock plays its final road match of the regular season 2 p.m. Saturday at Gannon University.
 
 
 
 
 
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