AKRON, OHIO – The Niagara volleyball team opened play at the Akron Invite by falling to the Milwaukee Panthers and Akron Zips on Friday. 

"Eventhough we lost today, I thought our team battled really hard and put itself in a position to win in almost every game in the late stages," head coach Vilis Ozols said. "We were tight when in a position to break through. I know that we will continue to grow as a team."

Niagara 0, Milwaukee 3

Niagara opened the Akron Invite by facing the Milwaukee Panthers this morning. Niagara was competitive throughout the match, but was unable to pull out a win in the three-set defeat, 25-19, 25-20, 25-18.

The Purple Eagles entered this weekend second in the MAAC in opponent hitting percentage at .242, but the Panthers hit .366 for the match and no less than .324 in a set.

After dropping the first set, Niagara responded well in the second set finishing with 12 kills for a .222 hitting percentage. The Purple Eagles led 19-18 before UWM closed out the set on a 7-1 spurt to take a 2-0 advantage.

NU took a quick 2-0 lead to start the third set, though once the Panthers took a 11-7 lead the Purple Eagles could not get the deficit to less than three points.

Amanda Sedore led Niagara with 10 kills and Emily Hopkins led the team with 27 assists. Melissa McGwin had another solid match, leading the team in hitting percentage at .273 with nine kills on 22 attacks. Alex Stone finished with a career-best seven kills and added eight digs.

Niagara 0, Akron 3

The Purple Eagles (0-5) held in close with the host and undefeated Zips (4-0) in the three-set loss, 25-15, 25-19, 28-26.

Akron benefited from runs in the first two sets. A 15-4 run by the Zips in the first set put distance between the teams. In the set, Niagara trailed 6-2 before rallying to tie the score at 15-15 before Akron's 5-0 run led it to a 25-19 second set win.

The most competitive set of the match was in the third which featured 12 ties and eight lead changes. With the set tied at 13-13, Niagara reeled off four straight points to take a 17-13 lead.  The Zips responded with four straight points of their own to set up a frantic finale to the set. The lead would change six more times when the Purple Eagles was serving for the set up 25-24. However, Akron scored the next two points to go up 26-25. A service error tied the match at 26-26, but an error by Niagara gave Akron a chance to win the set. The Zips took advantage and won the set on a kill by Julia Smagacz to end the match.

Sedore led NU in kills for the second straight match with 11 and Allison Reis had a match-high 17 digs. McGwin tied a game-best with three blocks.

Niagara wraps up play at the Akron Invite on Saturday against Tennessee Tech at 11:30 a.m.