Erie, Pa. – Senior Jenna Matson had a career night and the Mercyhurst women's volleyball team battled back from a slow start to defeat cross-town rival Gannon in five sets Tuesday night at the Hammermill Center. Matson's 25 kills helped the Lakers to a 20-25, 25-27, 25-23, 25-15, 15-11 victory to pick up a critical Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Western Division win.

 

Tied at 10-10 in the fifth set, Katie Fritz posted a kill, followed by a Chelsea Hennigan ace and a block from Justine Smith and Julia Butler to give Mercyhurst a 13-10 lead. Fittingly, Matson finished the match with back-to-back kills as the Lakers improved to 7-4 overall and 2-1 in the PSAC West.

 

Matson also had just four attack errors and hit .467 for the match. Since sets were cut to 25 points this year, no Laker had finished with more than 14 kills in a match prior to her performance. She added eight digs and three service aces.

 

Mercyhurst hit just .074 in the first two sets but began to turn things around late in the third set. Trailing 19-17, the Lakers reeled off three straight points and then, with the score tied at 20-20, Matson had back-to-back kills followed by a Lauren Kubinski kill to give Mercyhurst some breathing room. The Lakers held a 24-21 lead when Gannon's Ashley Tubbs had a kill followed by a service ace and Mercyhurst head coach Ryan Patton called a timeout. Coming out of the break, Tubbs had a service error that gave Mercyhurst the set.

 

The Lakers quickly took a stranglehold of the fourth set, scoring 12-of-14 points during one stretch and cruised to a 25-15 win to force the deciding stanza. With momentum firmly on its side, Mercyhurst jumped out to a quick 6-1 lead but Gannon still had a comeback of its own. The Golden Knights tied the fifth set at 9-9 and 10-10 before the Lakers scored five of the final six points for the win.

 

Kendall Ashworth ended with a match-high 20 digs and Butler had 48 assists to go with 12 digs. Smith had four kills, four digs and eight blocks in the match. Mercyhurst finished with 23 more digs than Gannon and hit .169 compared to the Golden Knights .139.

 

Gannon falls to 3-6 on the year and 0-2 in the PSAC West. Mercyhurst travels to Edinboro Saturday for two matches. The Lakers will play Edinboro in their PSAC West contest at 10:30 a.m. before playing Point Park in a non-conference match at 12:30 p.m.