The Missouri Southern volleyball Lions hosted the Missouri Western State Griffons in an MIAA conference match-up this evening. The Lions suffered a loss in the full five sets.

The Lions started off a little flat during set one, falling behind early. With a score of 17-10, junior Katie Politte made a couple digs that resulted in a Lions’ point and looked to swing momentum. The Lions couldn’t recover and lost set one 25-15.

Set two played out differently. The set remained close in the beginning, with the teams being locked up at 11. The Lions proceeded to go on a 4-0 run capped by a big spike for a kill by sophomore Payton Graves, which gave the Lions a 15-11 lead. The Lions went on to win the match comfortably by a score of 25-18.

After falling behind in set three the Lions proved to be resilient. Down 21-13 at one point in time, the Lions clawed their way back into contention with great team play. After an 8-0 run by the Lions, the set was tied at 21. Sophomore Abby Finder had a great play to put the Lions up 26-25 when she faked a set and pushed the ball over the net for a kill. The Lions comeback effort fell short though, as they lost to the Griffons 31-29.

Set four only saw lead changes twice, as the Lions led the set for most of the duration. The set drew close near the end when the Griffons made the score 24-23, but the Lions would find the final point on a Griffons’ spike that went long to win the match 25-23.

The Griffons controlled set five from the beginning, jumping out to a 5-0 advantage over the Lions. Graves would score the first point of the set on a powerful spike, but the Lions could never get back in the match. They lost the final set 15-6.

Politte led the Lions in points with 20, but also had a team-high nine errors. Graves had 18 points for the Lions in the loss to go along with a strong .393 attacking percentage.