Sept. 29, 2012 - The Concordia Cougar volleyball team, fresh off a competitive but tough loss to unbeaten Maranatha Baptist Bible College on Friday night, were faced with two more stiff challenges in Saturday's Tri-Match at Geiseman Gymnasium. The Cougars played well in stretches against Edgewood College (14-4) and Augustana College (12-3) but came up short in both matches to fall to 4-11 overall.

The first of the three matches pitted Concordia against Edgewood in a Northern Athletics Conference match. The Eagles were coming off a sweep over Dominican University the night before, and Edgewood continued on a roll with a 25-12, 25-15, 25-15 victory. The visitors put on a magnificent display of hitting which any team would have been hard-pressed to match. Edgewood committed just one error in 54 combined attempts over the first two sets while recording 28 kills (.519). and they finished the match with a collective .442 attack (44-6-86). Jessica Martin's 12 kills led the Eagles while Claire Mackey's (Shelton, NE/Heartland Lutheran) 11 topped the Cougars.

Augustana was next up after the Vikings fell to Edgewood by a 3-0 count in the middle match. Set one was tied at 18-18 following two consecutive kills by Mackey. However, Emily Leazer (24 kills, .419) restored the lead to the Vikings on the next serve, and Jordan Hampel served up six straight points to give Augustana the 25-18 opening-set win.

Set two followed a similar pattern. Tied at 19-19, a serving error gave the ball back to the Vikings. They would score the next four points for a 24-19 lead. Concordia rallied to get to within 24-22, but a second clutch serving error ended the comeback as Augustana went up 2-0 in the match.

Concordia came back to take set three by a 25-23 score. Freshman Kristin Allen (Green Valley, IL/Illini Central) led the rally with four kills (.444) including two down the stretch to give the Cougars their 23rd and 24th points. Bianca Gordon (Milwaukee, WI/Milwaukee Lutheran) added four kills and two blocks while Mackey recorded three kills and seven digs.

Any further thoughts of a comeback were thwarted as the Vikings scored the first nine points of set four. Concordia got as close as 12-6 but were unable to overcome the large deficit.

Augustana recorded 58 kills for the match, led by Leazer's 24 and Martha Murray's 21. Gordon recorded eight kills and six blocks while Mackey followed with seven kills and 14 digs.

Concordia will return to action next weekend when they travel for road matches at Lakeland College and Marian University.