READING, Pa. – The Albright Lions women's volleyball team fell behind two sets early, and were unable to recover as they dropped a 3-1 (18-25, 15-25, 25-21, 18-25) contest to Penn State Berks on Tuesday evening at the Bollman Center.
 
With the loss, the Lions drop to 7-9 overall as they play a pair of non-conference games this week. Meanwhile, the Nittany Lions improve to one game over .500 overall at 11-10.
 
Sophomore Grace Serafin led the Lions with a team-high eight kills, and added 11 digs. First-Year Grace Andrefski posted six kills and two blocks, while classmate Shelby Cheuvront tallied five kills, a team-high 22 digs, and two aces. Junior Paige Westra recorded five kills, 14 digs, and four assists in the loss. Junior Alexa Poss paced the Lions offense with 26 assists, while adding four kills and nine digs.
 
The Nittany Lions started strong as they jumped out to a 6-1 lead, and eventually extended it out to 9-4. Albright rattled off four-straight points to make it 9-8, but the Nittany Lions responded by taking six of the next seven points to go back up 15-9. Berks tallied three kills and two aces during the run. The set of runs continued as the Lions won five-straight points to cut the lead down to 15-14, but Berks responded with eight-straight points of their own to take a commanding 23-14 lead. Albright made a slight rally as they took four of the next five points to make it a 24-18 game, but a bad set ended the rally and the set at 25-18. The Nittany Lions won the first two points of the second set, but Albright responded with five-straight points to go up 5-2. Berks began to heat up as they took seven of the next eight points to go up 9-6 behind five kills. Albright would get within two points of the Nittany Lions four times with the latest being at 13-11, but that would be as close as they would get in the second set. Berks closed out the second set by taking eight of the last nine points after the score was at 17-14.
 
Berks went up 3-1 early on in the third set, but Albright rallied to tie the score at five following a trio of errors from the Nittany Lions. The Lions continued their momentum as they won five of the next six points to take a 10-7 lead after Berks went up 6-5. The Nittany Lions took three of the next four points to tie the score at 11 before eventually going up 14-12. Albright used its biggest run of the night as they won six of the next eight points to take an 18-16 lead following an ace from Cheuvront. The teams continued to battle back and forth until Albright took a timeout following a Berks point at 22-21. Albright came out of the timeout and won the final three points to force a fourth set. The Nittany Lions came out strong in the fourth set as they took an early 5-2 lead before taking a commanding 10-3 advantage to force a Lions timeout. Albright began to rally behind three kills out of the timeout to make it a 10-7 game. Unfortunately for Albright, they would get no closer than three points the rest of the way as Berks closed out the game with a 25-18 win in set four.
 
Nicole Dwyer and Zoe Barna each led Berks with 13 kills apiece, while setter Julia Rathsam paced the offense with 42 assists and defense with 23 digs.
 
The Lions will return to action on Saturday, October 19^th as they will host FDU-Florham at 11 a.m.