JOHNSTOWN, Pa. - The Slippery Rock University volleyball team lost its Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Western Division opener on the road Friday at Pitt-Johnstown in five sets (23-25, 25-23, 21-25, 25-19, 15-9).
 
The loss moves The Rock's record to 7-6 overall and 0-1 in league play meanwhile Pitt-Johnstown improves its nearly perfect record to 13-1 overall and 1-0 inside the PSAC.
 
Friday's contest featured two evenly matched teams as evidenced by the 11 lead changes and 25 ties that occurred throughout match.  
 
The Rock's attack was paced by the duo of Callie Chevalier and Erica Selfridge. Chevalier turned in a team-high 15 kills while Selfridge closed the match with an 11-kill, 15-dig double-double. Chelsie Wheeler rounded out SRU's attack leaders with seven kills.
 
Chevalier has accounted for three of The Rock's four highest single-match kill outputs this season (18, 16, 15).
 
Selfridge, who also served one ace, is now just one kill away from becoming the 11th athlete in program history to reach 1,000 for her career.
 
Setters Jaeden Yost and Brooke Farrah passed out 19 and 17 assists, respectively, with Yost also serving a team-high three aces in what was her sixth multi-ace outing of the year. Farrah also logged 13 digs for her first collegiate double-double.
 
Lauren VonderHaar, who ranks second in the PSAC in season blocks with 60, continued her dominant junior campaign with seven more rejections (one solo / six assisted) against UPJ. Chevalier (3), Selfridge (2), Wheeler (2) and Aslyn Pry (2) all provided SRU with at least two blocks as well.
 
Libero Kate Lachendro-Biery made 20 digs – her seventh match of the year with at least 20 digs – to go with two aces offensively.
 
No lead was safe in the first set as The Rock and Mountain Cats traded runs and advantages for the near duration of the opener.
 
With UPJ clinging to a 22-21 lead, SRU finished the set strong on a 4-1 run that featured two kills by Chevalier, one from Selfridge and a UPJ attack error mixed in on the way to the narrow 25-23 victory for SRU in what was its ninth first-set win of the year.
 
The Rock parlayed a 5-1 spurt in the early stages of the second set to gain some separation in the form of a five-point, 14-9 advantage only for Pitt-Johnstown to respond by taking seven of the following nine points to even the set at 16-16 and force a Rock timeout.
 
UPJ proceeded to take the next three points out of the break before SRU provided an answer of its own to push the contest back into a 20-20 tie. As was the case all match, the waning moments of the second set saw SRU and Pitt-Johnstown go back-and-forth with the Mountain Cats edging their way to a 25-23 victory to even the match at one set apiece.  
 
Following the trend of its predecessors, the third set was another close battle between the two evenly matched teams with the Mountain Cats eventually creeping out to a slim 21-19 lead.
 
Not to be outdone, Slippery Rock mounted yet another comeback, taking advantage of five late UPJ errors in addition to a Wheeler kill as part of a set-deciding six-point run for the 25-21 decision.
 
In what has been a rarity for The Rock this year, SRU was unable to close out the win in the fourth where Pitt-Johnstown avoided the home loss thanks to a 25-19 victory, forcing Slippery Rock into a fifth set for the first time in 2024.
 
Another rally was not in the cards for Slippery Rock as the host Mountain Cats completed its comeback victory by way of a 15-9 victory in the fifth set.
 
The Mountain Cats ended the night holding advantages over The Rock in kills (59-46), attack percentage (.107-.092), aces (11-9) and digs (105-88). SRU registered a lead in total blocks (9-7). Pitt-Johnstown's Lualis Alvarado's 29 kills were a match-best and the second highest output by a PSAC athlete this season.
 
Slippery Rock plays its first Tuesday match of the season when it travels to Seton Hill University Oct. 1 for a 7 p.m. PSAC West match in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.
 
 
 
 
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