READING, Pa. – The Albright Lions women's volleyball team was dealt a heartbreaking 3-2 loss to Marywood on Thursday night in the Bollman Center in non-conference action.
 
With the loss, the Lions drop to 5-5 overall as they wrapped up their third game in four days. Meanwhile, the Pacers of the newly formed Atlantic East Conference improves to 5-4.
 
Sophomore Damaris Gomez led the Lions with 15 kills and added a season-high 20 digs along with two service aces. Classmate Kaitlyn Chell finished with 11 kills, 19 digs, and three service aces while Alexa Poss registered 21 assists, 12 digs, four kills, and a team-high six service aces. Senior Becca Davis led the Lions with 24 digs for her fourth-straight game of 20+ digs.
 
Albright jumped out to a quick 5-0 lead in the first set behind four-straight service aces from Poss to start the game. The Pacers won four of the next five points to cut the lead down to 6-4 before the Lions quickly re-maintained their lead by going up 11-6. Albright won six straight points while being up 12-9 to go up 18-9, and brought their lead out to 21-12. The Lions then sat a point away from a set win up 24-13 before the Pacers staged a furious rally to trail 24-22. Fortunately for the Lions, an attack error on the next point from the Pacers halted the comeback and sealed the set win.
 
In set two, the Pacers were the ones to grab a sizable early lead as they quickly went up 8-2 to continue momentum from the near complete comeback in the first set. The Lions would begin to chip away and got within four at 13-9 before Marywood went back up 16-10. Albright then staged a furious rally of their own to go up 17-16 behind seven-straight points. Following a Pacer timeout, the teams traded points and the Lions eventually went up 21-19. Marywood would lock the score up at 22 to send the set into a back-and-forth finish into extra points. The Pacers were able to use a service error then an ace to win set two.
 
The third set saw each team go on mini-runs to start as the Lions held an 8-6 lead early on.  Neither team saw its lead grow above two points until Albright stormed back to take the third set at 25-22 with the final three points of the set. Marywood went up 20-18 on three-straight points before the Lions won five of the next six points to go up 23-21, and eventually take the set. From the start of the fourth set, Marywood took control early and never looked back as they easily dispatched the Lions to force a game-deciding fifth set. The Pacers held a lead by as much as 11 points in the fourth set before winning the set at 25-13.
 
Albright started the fifth set red hot with a pair of service aces and taking advantage of Pacer attack errors. The Lions worked their lead up to 10-3 to seemingly cruise to victory, but the Pacers stunned Albright by winning 12 of the last 14 points to steal the victory. The Pacers tallied five service aces during the run with three of them being the last three points of the game.
 
Marywood held sizable advantages in service aces (18-11), blocks (12-2), and kills (55-38). The teams combined for 23 service errors with 15 coming from the Pacers. Peri Sheeran put together a huge game for the Pacers with a game-high 23 kills and seven blocks, while Sara Burgos paced the offense with 46 assists.
 
The Lions will return to action on Tuesday, September 25^th when they will host Lycoming in MAC Commonwealth play at 7 p.m.