Box Score

INDIANA, PA – Despite 10 kills each from Morgan Cerveny (Richfield, OH/Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy) and Danielle Ostendorf (Rockford, IL/Boylan Catholic) and 37 assists from Carissa Miara (Pittsburgh/West Allegheny), the Crimson Hawks dropped their final home match for a month as IUP lost to visiting Shepherd in four sets on Tuesday night at the Kovalchick Complex.

Runs of four and five points in the opening set helped IUP (7-9) to a 12-8 lead, until the Rams scored eight of the next 10 to take a 16-15 advantage.

The rest of the set went back-and-forth for the most part, but Shepherd went on a small run to end the set, taking a 25-21 win.

The second set was all Crimson Hawks, as IUP started off by scoring five of the first six points to take a 5-1 lead. After both teams traded points throughout the middle of the set, the Crimson Hawks went on a 6-2 run, taking advantage of Shepherd mistakes while also getting kills from Cerveny and Ostendorf to take a 20-12 lead.

IUP would end up trading points with the Rams for the rest of the set, until Cerveny's kill from Emily Vaughn (Shippensburg/Shippensburg) gave the Crimson Hawks the 25-16 win.

After falling down 5-2 in the third set, a 9-3 rally by the Crimson Hawks gave them an 11-8 advantage, before eventually taking an 18-15 lead later in the game. The Rams would rally themselves, scoring five straight points to take a 20-18 lead before closing out the game and winning 25-18.

The Crimson Hawks again built a lead in the fourth set, going up 17-14 after scoring four straight points, including kills by Ostendorf and Beth Sova. However after a timeout, the Rams would score four of six to cut their deficit to one before scoring seven straight points to end up on top 25-19.

Sova and Lauren Hester (State College, Pa. /State College) each added eight kills offensively. On the defensive end, Sova posted two solo blocks, while Vaughn and Hester added 17 and 12 digs, respectively.

The Crimson Hawks now hit the road, playing at PSAC West foes Gannon and Mercyhurst this weekend before their PSAC Crossover matches in Shippensburg and Millersville next weekend.