WINONA, Minn. – The Saint Mary's volleyball team faced ranked Gustavus Adolphus in the Cardinals first home and MIAC match of the season Friday night. The Cardinals fell in three sets to the Golden Gusties.
 
After the Cardinals gave up five points to start the game, Kali Olson turned around and had four kills to get the Cardinals on the board. The Gusties kept a comfortable three-point lead whenever the Cardinal began to make a run. The Cardinals started to creep back in the set gaining momentum from the errors on the other end. Brenna Bruchert and Paige Klug poured in a few kills for the Cardinals to get within one at 20-19. The Gusties finished on a run of their own taking the first set.
 
The second set started in similar fashion as the first. Cardinals trailed by a couple points and Olson added a few kills to tie with the ranked Gusties at five. Errors began to haunt the Cardinals before Emma Rommes brought the momentum back with back-to-back service aces, down 19-17. At the end, two unfortunate block errors kept the Gusties in the lead to win set two.
 
Coming out hot, the Cardinals took a 9-3 lead with contributions from Lindsey Rossow, King, and Olson forcing a Gusties timeout. A few miss hits hurt the Cardinals as the Gusties fought back to take a 12-10 lead. The Cardinals were responding to everything the Gusties threw at them as they kept trailing by one. The Cardinals did not have an answer to the Gusties front line as they continued to take it at the Cardinals and recording the sweep.
 
Olson led all Cardinals in kills with 14 kills and Devann Clemens added 20 assists.
 
The Cardinals next match is Sunday, Sept 29^th traveling to Moorhead to face Concordia at 2:30 p.m.