Junior Michelle LeSouder led Niagara with 17 kills Friday.

NIAGARA UNIVERSITY, N.Y. – The Niagara University volleyball team (0-1) lost its season and home opener Friday night with a 26-30, 22-30, 23-30 to Stony Brook (1-0) in the Western New York Invitational at Gallagher Center on the Monteagle Ridge campus.

Junior outside hitter Michelle LeSouder led the Purple Eagles with 17 kills. Classmate Erin Graham (Oakfield, N.Y./Oakfield Alabama) added nine kills and 11 digs. Juniors Micole Daluisio (Lancaster, N.Y./Lancaster) and Jennifer Hansford had 17 and 11 digs, respectively.

Stony Brook was led by Morgan Sweany with 17 kills and 13 digs. Sarah Bauer added 12 and Maria Samilo 10.

Niagara led early in the first game, 5-1, but the Seawolves went on a 7-1 run to tie the game at 8-8. The score remained tied late into the game before Stony Brook put together an 8-2 run to seal the win.

The Purple Eagles trailed the entire second game, getting only as close as six points at 26-20, but the Seawolves tallied four points on four-straight kills. Game three ended just the same as two, as Stony Brook ran off four kills on the final seven plays.

"I thought we had a very good first match of the season," Niagara head coach Rocco Lucci said. "We didn’t have a lot of first game jitters and we were pretty confident coming out. We had one passing lapse but we came back from it.

"We dug more than them, we blocked more than them, the only thing they beat us on the statistics were kills and the score," he continued. "We played two different rotations so we had some young players on the floor. They’re going to pick up their play later on this season. We can build from this loss instead of having it hurt us later. Individually, Annie Wachob played great. She earned it and really turned it around in the last couple of days of practice and took that to the floor tonight."

Niagara returns to action Saturday at 1 p.m. when it hosts Binghamton (0-1) and then plays Texas Arlington at 7 p.m.