The Buena Vista volleyball team got the 2018 season underway on Friday afternoon at the Kathryne Pals Legacy Invitational, but the Beavers came up just short in a 3-2 setback to Concordia-Moorhead to begin the day before suffering a tough 3-0 sweep at the hands of the host Eagles.

BVU was strong out of the gate with a match-high 13 kills and a stellar .458 attack percentage in the first set against the Cobbers en route to a strong 25-16 victory.  Concordia bounced back with wins in the next two sets before the Beavers foreced the fifth set with a thrilling 25-23 triumph.  

A pair of attach errors by the Cobbers gave BVU a 9-6 avantage in the fifth set, but then a pair of kills mixed in with a bad set and an attack error put Concordia back in front at 10-9.  BVU tied it at 10-10 with a kill from Megan Vaughn.  The Beavers later went up 13-12 with a kill from Sydney McLaren, but the Cobbers took advantage of a serving error to spark a 3-0 run to give them a 15-13 victory.

"I'm very impressed with how we came out, we played our tempo and stayed aggressive from the service line," says first-year BVU coach Aubrey Havlichek. "Through sets two and three, we beat ourselves more than anything, not executing at crucial times and missing the little points."

McLaren led the way for BVU at the net with 10 kills in her collegiate debut and completed the double-doube with 11 digs as well as recording four service aces.  Brooke Runneberg, Kylie Roe and Mackenzie Gropel each follwed with eight as BVU tallied 47 in the match.  Gropel also turned in a double-double by adding 10 digs to go along with a pair of service aces.  

The Beavers were held in check against the 15th-ranked Eagles, who went on to win by scores of 25-19, 25-13, 25-22.  McLaren again led the charge with seven kills and seven digs as Roe and Serena Sandvig each turned in six kills.

"There's a reason Northwestern is always a tournament contender," Havlichek added. "We stuck with them for the most part, coming up just short across the board.  We had a lot of good despite walking away 0-2 on day one and we are excited to get back at it tomorrow!"

Buena Vista looks to get into the win colum for the first time on the year when it wraps up play on Saturday with matches against St. Olaf at 12:00pm and Bethel at 2:00pm.