ERIE, Pa. – The Slippery Rock University volleyball team lost to Gannon University on the road in three sets 25-16, 25-18, 25-14 Friday at the Highmark Events Center in Erie, Pennsylvania.
 
Friday's Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Western Division loss drops The Rock's record to 11-12 on the season overall and 3-7 in league contests while Gannon, which received votes in the most recent American Volleyball Coaches Association Top-25 poll, improves to 17-3 overall and 8-1 inside the PSAC West.
 
Callie Chevalier (7), Erica Selfridge (6) and Alayna Chizmar (5) combined to record 18 of The Rock's 28 kills in the match. The trio also posted five digs each while Selfridge served one ace.
 
Jaeden Yost tallied her seventh double-double of the season with 13 assists and 12 digs in addition to serving one ace and chipping in one block. Lauren VonderHaar rounded out SRU's offensive leaders with four kills on a .250 attack percentage.
 
SRU's defensive efforts were led by Mary Berger, who had three blocks, and Kate Lachendro, with a team-best 13 digs. Lachendro moved past Missy Watson (1990-93) and into ninth place in program history for digs in a career with 1,514.
 
Slippery Rock was doomed by a slow start in the opener as Gannon took nine of the set's first 11 points and would lead by as many as 10 during the game on the way to an eventual 25-16 victory.
 
The second set started much more competitive than the opening set as The Rock and Golden Knights evenly split the first 16 points of the set.
 
However, with the set tied at 8-8 Gannon registered a decisive 8-3 run to push ahead of SRU 16-11. The five-point lead allowed the Golden Knights to trade points with SRU down the stretch en route to a 25-18 win.
 
Slippery Rock looked to avoid its fifth straight three-set loss by jumping out to a 7-4 lead in the third set only for the Golden Knights to respond by capturing eight consecutive points to take a 12-7 lead that SRU could never fully bounce back from as GU finished off the set, and the match, with a 25-14 win.
 
Gannon held team advantages over The Rock in total kills (39-28), attack percentage (.209-.034), aces (5-2), total blocks (10-4) and digs (56-50). Journey Blevins led the Golden Knights with an 18-kill, 11-dig double-double.
 
Slippery Rock is back in action for another PSAC West match in Erie County 6 p.m. Oct. 27 at Edinboro.
 





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