Final Stats

ANNAPOLIS, Md. â€"â€" After winning the opening set, the Navy volleyball team's offense struggled in the remainder of what would be a four-set loss to Lehigh Friday night at the Wesley A. Brown Field House in Annapolis. The Mountain Hawks (6-9, 2-0 Patriot League) defeated the Mids (10-3, 0-1), 19-25, 25-17, 27-25, 25-16.

"It turned into which team was better at out-of-system plays," said Navy head coach Larry Bock, "and Lehigh definitely was better at playing when out of system than we were."

Navy held a slim 13-12 lead in the first set when a kill by Maggie Phillips (Jr., Leesburg, Va.) start a 3-0 and 6-2 run that gave it a 19-14 lead. The Mountain Hawks could only winnow the margin down to as few as four points on two occasions as the Mids claimed the first set, which was deemed "ugly for both teams" by Bock.

The second set was close until a 7-1 run by Lehigh gave it a 16-9 cushion which Navy never was able to dent too much.

The third set was the best played frame of the night as it featured five ties and four lead changes, most of which occurred in the latter stages of the set.

The Mids trailed by as many as six points â€"â€" 12-6 â€"â€" and still were behind by three points â€"â€" 21-18 â€"â€" late in the set. Navy ran off the next five points to take a 23-21 advantage. A Lehigh kill was followed by a Lehigh attack error, which took Navy to set point with a 24-22 lead. The Mountain Hawks erased both of the set points against them on kills to tie the score at 24-24. A service error gave Navy a third chance to serve for the set, this time with a 25-24 lead. An attack error by the Mids tied the score again, then a Lehigh block and a kill on the next two plays gave the Mountain Hawks a 2-1 advantage.

Just as in the second set, Lehigh held a 9-8 lead in the fourth set when it started to separate from Navy. The Mountain Hawks took a 12-9 lead, which soon became 14-12 and eventually grew to 22-12 as they closed out the nearly two hour match.

Navy outhit Lehigh, .222-.050, in the first set, but the Mountain Hawks outhit the Mids, .293-.092 over the last three sets. This included the second and fourth sets in which Navy hit .000 in both. Together, that gave Lehigh a .231-.122 advantage in hitting percentage for the night. Helping the Mountain Hawks to that advantage was their totaling 64 digs and 12 blocks to 58 digs and 7 blocks for the Mids.

"We never really got back to the level we played at when we won the first set," said Bock. "We can't look back at any one play as determining the match, seeing as how Lehigh had more kills, digs and blocks than we did."

Dorothy Murray (Jr., Harbor City, Calif.) was the lone Mid to reach double figures in kills as she totaled 10 of them. Five other Mids notched between five and eight kills, including Katie Patrick (So., Aurora, Colo.) who had eight kills and a .389 attack percentage. Defensively, Sydney Shearn (So., Louisville, Ky.) snared 18 digs and Phillips had three blocks.

Lehigh's Jessica Donaldson led all players in the match with 21 kills to go along with a .349 attack percentage. Three Lehigh players totaled at least three blocks and Emily Develle gathered in 25 digs.

Navy will be back on the court Saturday at 4 p.m. when it plays host to Bucknell.

"We will pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and be ready to go tomorrow," said Bock.