It was the third match against a PAC opponent of the week for the Waynesburg University volleyball team. The match took place on Saturday, Sept. 23, and unfortunately for the Yellow Jackets, it was their third consecutive straight set loss, as they fell to the Bethany Bison.

The turning point in the match came late in the second set, when Waynesburg had a 22- 21 lead on Bethany, but allowed the Bison to score the next four points and take the set. 

Yellow Jacket Head Coach Emily Grossman talked a little more about that later stages of that second set. 

“At certain points it felt like Bethany had all the control. But that second set we go up on them 22- 21 and then never score another point. That’s some mental toughness stuff that we need to figure out and work on amongst ourselves. But what that shows me as a coach is that, they didn’t put subs in, we competed with their starting lineup, so we can compete with anyone in this conference.” 

Junior Labero Jordan Stein recorded 20 digs in the loss. It was her fifth straight match recording 20 or more digs for the Yellow Jackets. 

“I feel like Bethany did have, for the majority of the match, control,” Stein said. “But once we figured out how to slow it down and play our game I thought that we gained control over [the match], but it did show us that once we are playing clean and we’re all working together that we can play the best volleyball we can.”

Bethany was able to log nine aces in the match. Afterwards, Grossman was very clear about what she wanted to work on with her team. 

“Serve receive,” Grossman said. “Bethany is one of the most aggressive serving teams in this conference and they aced us nine times, that’s nine free points where we couldn’t play the ball. So that’s going to be our focus as we move forward, better first ball contact, and less free points there.”

Grossman also spoke on the amount of younger players she puts on the floor, which puts some leadership responsibilities on players like Stein. She talked about what she has to do as a leader when this team hits a lull like they have this past week.

“When we’re losing, our energy starts to go down, so you just have to have more energy when you’re losing because if not you’re going to let them control the entire game, and you’re not going to come back.” Stein said. “I feel like supporting, too, when you’re losing. You have to figure out what each teammate needs to support them when they make a mistake instead of letting them get in their head.”

The loss dropped the Yellow Jackets to 5-7 on the season. Their next match will be Wednesday, Sept. 27, when they host Saint Vincent College at Rudy Marisa Fieldhouse.