LOS ANGELES — As Saint Mary's Volleyball concludes a stretch that features a lot of road games to open up West Coast Conference play, the most difficult portion of their schedule begins. The Gaels opened up a SoCal swing against the Loyola Marymount Lions, and the Lions gave the Gaels all they could handle. Saint Mary's never scored above 19 points on Thursday night, falling straight sets with finals of 25-19, 25-18, and 25-16. The Gaels are now 6-7 (3-2) on the year while LMU improves to 8-6 (4-2).
 
UNABLE TO FINISH
Despite the totals seeming like the night belonged all to LMU, the Gaels had chances to win in each of the first two sets. Saint Mary's scored four of the first five points to open the night, taking advantage of three attack errors from the Lions. Then after falling behind 14-7, the Gaels clawed their way back to make it an 18-17 score, with Hawley Harrer getting the 17^th point on a kill. The Lions then scored seven of the final nine points to close out the first set. In the second set, Saint Mary's led as late as 15-14, but 11 of the final 14 points went to the Lions for the second set victory. The Gaels were competitive, but could not seal the deal in crunch time.
 
SPREADING IT OUT
For the second WCC match in a row, the Gaels failed to have several standout performers, but rather had a diverse attack that came from so many players. No Gael had more than six kills, with Harrer and Kjersti Strong leading the charge. Six different players recorded kills on Thursday night, including Abby Castillon, who recorded her first kill since the month of August, and the seventh of her career. What has been a strong attack as of late for SMC was not as sharp against LMU, with just a .080 hitting percentage recorded by the Gaels. Inspite of that, Strong had just one error on 14 swings for a .357 hitting percentage.
 
AMONG OTHER NUMBERS
It was a solid night for Genevieve Bane, who finished with four kills but had five block assists, the most in her collegiate career (she also added an ace)…Ella Sandt recorded 18 of the team's 24 assists on Thursday night…no Gael had more than the seven digs put up by Megan Chandler Allred, but nine different Gaels got in on the stat sheet in terms of digs…the Gaels hitting percentage was not the best, and the Lions put up a .295 hitting percentage, leaving the Gaels 1-5 when the opponent hits .250 or better.
 
UP NEXT
Saturday afternoon features the Gaels heading to Malibu to take on the Waves of Pepperdine, ranked 20^th in the NCAA. First serve is scheduled for 12:00 pm. The Gaels will then make a well-deserved trip home to take on some of the top teams in the conference the following week, with BYU and San Diego coming to town.