The Northwest Missouri State volleyball team dropped a tough fought five set match to the Emporia State Hornets, 3-2, in an MIAA contest at Bearcat Arena on Saturday night. The loss moves  the Bearcats to 9-14 overall and 3-7 in MIAA play. Emporia State improved to 15-7 and 6-4 in conference play. Both teams wore pink jerseys in support of breast cancer awareness as part of the Dig Pink campaign.

Late in the first set, Northwest opened up a 19-14 lead. Emporia would battle back, tying the set up at 23-23. The teams would tie the score up five moretimes before Emporia capitalized on a pair of attacking errors to win, 30-28. In the second set, Northwest again found itself in a close fight. This time, with the set tied 20-20, the Bearcats would rally, scoring five of the next six points to even the match going into the break, 1-1.

Despite trailing for most of the third set, Northwest stayed close but wereunable to put together a late rally, falling 25-21. After playing to a 19-19 tie in the fourth set, Northwest got timely kills from Abby Graves, Gabby Kuhl, Jackie Becker and Shelby Duren to even the match at two sets a piece, winning the set, 25-22.

Down 12-9 in the deciding fifth set, Northwest went on a 4-1 rally to tie it up, 13-13. But the Hornets got a kill from Katie Deutschmann and an attack error was called on Shelby Duren, giving Emporia State the 15-13 set victory and a 3-2 match win.

Brooke Bartosh hit a solid .250 and recorded a game-high 15 kills. Graves and Duren each added 14 kills. Mackie Keller had 10 kills, hit .562, had two service aces and recorded four blocks defensively. Miranda Foster had a game-high 14 digs. Bailey Vance added 12 digs and Duren had 10. Jackie Becker was credited with five blocks and Bartosh added four blocks.

Up next, Northwest will head to Missouri Western on Tuesday for a 7 p.m. MIAA contest in St. Joseph, Mo.

— Northwest Sports Information —