Tuesday night ended with  more of the same for the Yellow Jacket volleyball team, another loss. Waynesburg [2-17, 0-9] fell to the Geneva Golden Tornado [15-7, 7-3] in straight sets, 3-0, as the team continues to rebuild and grow its program under second-year head coach Hayley Kirby.

The Jackets kept two of the three sets close. Waynesburg dropped set one, 25-21, before falling in set two 25-13 and allowing the Golden Tornadoes to barely escape the third set as the Jackets lost, 25-23.

One of the bright spots for Waynesburg came on defense from Alyson Johnson, who tallied 24 digs over three sets.

“She was really good, and she [was in] control of the defense,” Kirby said. “She was all over the place, and also was doing well on service too which was helpful because that’s usually a place where we struggle sometimes.”

With the lone statistical category in which Waynesburg outscored Geneva in being blocks, freshman Kayla Stohon led the Jackets individually with four.

“Our blocking was great, I think it’s the best blocking we’ve had all season,” Kirby said. “[Kayla] was awesome, she was all over the place. I think there was one play where she blocked one ball on the outside then she got all the way over to the right side and blocked another one.”

Geneva controlled Waynesburg’s offensive attack by limiting the damage from two of its key players in junior Hannah Colvin and sophomore Hannah Buhr. The two were limited to just six kills each in the loss.

“I don’t know if it was more of them doing it to us or us doing it to ourselves,” Kirby said. “We’re trying to find the happy medium of not making as many errors, but also scoring. Our errors were down a lot, but we also weren’t scoring as much. We need to find the happy medium of swinging aggressively to score, but not making as many errors.”

Despite the Jackets surrendering their ninth straight loss overall and ninth consecutive PAC loss dating back to last season, Kirby remains optimistic about what her program can do down the stretch. With seven of its last eight matches remaining being against PAC competition, she believes the team can make some significant strides.

“I want to win a conference game,” Kirby said. “We’re starting to play our best volleyball now. The last few games that we’ve played, we’re playing well but just still losing. We’re getting to the spot where we’re playing our best volleyball, we just need to win.”

Waynesburg will play its second straight home match at 7 p.m. Thursday when the first place Westminster Titans come to the Rudy Marisa Fieldhouse. The Jackets fell to the Titans in New Wilmington, three sets to one back on Homecoming. 

“They’re going to be tougher than the first time, but I think we’re ready” Kirby said. “The last time we played them they tipped the ball a lot and we got all of them up, so this time they’ll come in swinging. But we actually play better defense when playing against people who are swinging hard against us. It’s about us playing our game and controlling what’s on our side of the court.”