Air Force Clips Montana State Spikers in Five

Thursday, September 17

USAF Academy, CO

6:30 p.m.

Montana State University

2-5

Air Force Academy

5-7

Montana State

Air Force

Photo by: Kelly Gorham

9/17/2015 10:15:00 PM | Women's Volleyball

Box Score

“We’re proud of the way the team rebounded after starting so slowly,” said MSU head coach JJ Riley. “They have proven they have fight, we just need to do it from the start. The main thing is we cannot settle with starting slow and be okay with coming back at the end. We challenged the team to get themselves into a mindset where they are seething at the beginning of a match hungry to do battle.”

By: Tom Schulz

Despite getting out-hit in all five sets, the Montana State volleyball team rallied from a 2-0 deficit to take Air Force the distance before falling 25-14, 25-14, 23-25, 22-25, 15-13, Thursday night in the opening-round of the Omni Invitational co-hosted by AFA and the University of Colorado.

The Falcons cruised to a 2-0 advantage out-hitting the Bobcats .479 to .094. Montana State (2-5) came out of intermission taking a 16-8 lead in the third set. Air Force (5-7) fought back and evened the score at 23-all. MSU closed out the set with two consecutive points.

MSU jumped out to an early lead in the fourth stanza and a late block via Natalee Godfrey and Eli Svisco, coupled with an AFA hitting miscue, gave the Bobcats the win to force a final set.

Twice in the fifth set MSU trailed by three points but rallied to tie the score. With the game knotted at 12-all, the Falcons recorded back-to-back points, but an AFA serving error pulled MSU to within 14-13. Air Force took the match on a kill by Akokwe Clement.

"We're proud of the way the team rebounded after starting so slowly," said MSU head coach JJ Riley. "They have proven they have fight, we just need to do it from the start. The main thing is we cannot settle with starting slow and be okay with coming back at the end. We challenged the team to get themselves into a mindset where they are seething at the beginning of a match hungry to do battle."

Freshman Natalie Passeck paced the Bobcats with 12 kills, while Loni Kreun and Svisco added nine, apiece. Godfrey finished with eight kills, a .312 attack mark and five blocks. Setter Katie Harrington dished out 32 assists and libero Kasey Altman posted a team-high 12 digs. Svisco and Kiana Black led MSU at the net with six blocks each.

Clement paced AFA with a match-high 16 kills.

MSU will play Colorado Friday afternoon in Boulder.