LANGHORNE, Pa. – The Albright Lions women's volleyball team picked up a pair of five set victories in the Cairn Tri-Match as they defeated host Cairn before rallying to defeat Gwynedd Mercy on Saturday afternoon in non-conference action.
 
With the sweep of the tri-match, the Lions record improves to 4-4 overall as they won by scores of (25-18, 21-25, 25-19, 22-25, 15-5) over the Highlanders, and (23-25, 25-12, 19-25, 25-15, 15-11) over the Griffins. Meanwhile, the Highlanders fall to 2-10 after falling to the Griffins in straight-sets, who now sees their record stand at 6-6.
 
Freshman Grace Andrefski led the way with a combined 28 kills in two games with a career-high 17 coming against the Griffins. Andrefski hit over .400 in both games for the Lions as she also tallied two blocks in each game. Junior Kaitlyn Chell registered 21 combined kills with a career-high 15 against Gwynedd Mercy, while posting a combined 41 digs in the two contests with 26 coming against the Griffins. Junior Liz Bacovin recorded a combined 13 kills, while classmate Paige Westra tallied a combined 11 kills and 34 combined digs. Freshman libero Shelby Cheuvront registered a combined 37 digs with 24 coming against the Griffins. Junior Alexa Poss paced the Lions offense with a combined 67 assists as she recorded a career-high 40 against Gwynedd Mercy. Poss also added a career-high 10 kills against Cairn, and eight service aces against the Highlanders. The eight service aces are a single-game program record for games that went five sets.
 
Each teams traded the first few points in the first set to leave the score knotted at three before the Highlanders took five of the next seven points to go up 8-6. Cairn would then go up 12-9, but the Lions began to rally by taking six-straight points to take a 16-12 lead that was capped by a Cairn attack error. The run by Albright would be stretched out as they won four of the next five points to go up 20-13. Up 22-15, the Highlanders made a small rally as they won three-straight points to make it a 23-18 game before the Lions would close it out by taking the last two points. The second set started by going back and forth as well as the score was knotted early at six. The Highlanders would then take six-straight points to go up 12-6. For the majority of the second set, the Lions were unable to get closer than three points before tallying back-to-back points to make it a 23-21 game. Cairn would close out the second set by taking the final two points.
 
The Lions came out strong as they quickly went up 3-1 following back-to-back aces from Poss. Albright then broke a 3-3 tie by taking four of the next six points to go up 7-5. The Lions would take advantage of multiple attack errors from the Highlanders to take a 10-6 lead before eventually stretching their lead out to 14-9. Albright would continue to maintain its lead at 18-12 before the Highlanders used three Lion attack errors and a bad set to cut the lead down to 18-16. The Lions held a small 20-18 advantage before taking five of the last six points to win the third set at 25-19. Albright again came out with the early advantage in the fourth set as they went up by as many as three points at 6-3. However, Cairn stormed back to take the lead at 8-6 following five-straight points. The set of runs continued as the Lions won four-straight points to go back up 10-8. Cairn responded by taking four of the next five points to go up 12-11 before the Lions struck back yet again with three-straight points to go up 14-12. Cairn then took the lead back with four-straight points at 16-14 until the Lions used a run of four-straight points to take the lead back at 18-16. The Highlanders would take five of the next six points to take a slight 21-19 lead. Albright rallied to tie the score at 21, but Cairn forced a fifth set by winning four of the last five points to take it at 25-22. The Highlanders opened the fifth set with the first two points before Albright began a dominant fifth set with 10-straight points to go up 10-2. The Lions took advantage of numerous Highlander attack errors and bad sets to take the big lead as they would cruise to a 15-5 fifth set win to take the match.
 
In the first set against the Griffins, the Lions would jump out to a quick 3-1 lead before the Griffins took nine of the next 10 points to go up 10-4. Albright eventually found themselves down 14-6 until they ran off eight-straight points to tie the first set at 14. The teams would trade the next few points to lock the score at 17 before four unanswered points from the Griffins put them up 21-17. Albright battled back again to make it a one-point game at 22-21 following a kill from junior Brooke Franklin, but they could not gain consecutive points as the Griffins took set one at 25-23. Albright would come out swinging in the second set as they would take an 8-2 lead behind four kills and a few errors from Gwynedd Mercy. The Lions would continue to dominate the second set as they would stretch their lead out to 16-4 following a kill from Franklin. Albright closed the second set out by racing out to a 24-8 behind four-straight kills before taking the set at 25-12.
 
The Griffins came out dominant in the third set as they jumped out to a 6-0 lead behind three kills and two aces. Gwynedd Mercy continued to maintain a comfortable lead as they led by as many as nine points at 12-3. The Lions began to climb back into the game as they took four-straight points to make it a 12-7 deficit behind a pair of kills from Chell. Following a Griffin point, the Lions won four of the next five points to cut the deficit down to 14-11. Gwynedd Mercy would take the next three points to go up 17-11, but the Lions would mount a big run to tie the score at 18 after taking seven of the next eight points. However, the Griffins would take the third set by winning the final six points after the Lions tied the score at 19. Gwynedd Mercy came out strong again in the fourth set as they took an early 5-1 lead following a pair of aces. Albright then came alive and won 12-straight points to take a commanding 13-5 lead and force a Griffin timeout. Chell would come up big on the run with three kills and Westra posted a pair of aces as well. Albright would continue to maintain its lead as they would go up 19-8 after an ace from sophomore Grace Serafin. Gwynedd Mercy mounted a small run to close within eight points at 21-13, but the Lions would take four of the next five points to force the fifth set. The fifth set would be all Lions as they raced out to an 8-1 lead before going up 11-3. The Griffins would rally to make things interesting as they got within 13-10, but the Lions would take the final two points to complete the comeback.
 
Albright will return to action on Wednesday, September 25^th as they will host Widener in MAC Commonwealth play at 7 p.m.