UNIVERSITY CENTER, Mich. – The Saginaw Valley State University volleyball team split day two of the Clarion tournament in Pennsylvania. The Cardinals pushed host Clarion to five sets, but couldn't pull out the win in the decisive set (20-25, 25-18, 25-21, 20-25, 15-11). SVSU ended the day with a 3-1 (23-25, 25-17, 25-17, 31-29) over Lake Erie to finish 2-1 after two days of play.

Madison Thompson led the way as she recorded a double-double in both matches in kills and digs. She totaled 29 kills and 23 digs on the day. She added four blocks to her totals as well. Kelsey Vittitow finished the day with 33 digs (20, 13). Sedona Coon registered 10 digs in the first match of the day. Ava Beard finished with 67 assists between the two contests as she paced the play for the Cardinals.

Saginaw Valley scored seven of the first 10 points in the opening set against the Golden Eagles to take an early 7-3 lead and never looked back on the way to a 1-0 advantage.

Clarion took the second set never trailing on the way to the 25-18 decision that tied the set score at one apiece. The third set tightened up as neither team could really pull away on the way to the host eking out a 25-20 win to take a 2-1 lead going into the fourth set.

SVSU scored points in small bunches to build a seven-point lead early before building that advantage to nine at 19-10. The Golden Eagles cut it to five, but SVSU held out to get the win and force a fifth set.

A 5-0 run to start the fifth wasn't enough to give the Cardinals the win as Clarion rattled off six-straight to take the lead and they would not surrender it again as they earned the win 15-11.

"We had a pretty solid match against the home team today," said volleyball head coach Will Stanton. "They have a lot of offensive options and it really tested our younger players. We withstood some tough situations and had a chance to win, but just couldn't finish."

The Cardinals experienced a 1-0 deficit against Lake Erie in the second match when the Storm won a tightly contested opening set, 25-23.

SVSU took control in the second, building a 19-13 lead before knotting up the score with a 25-17 win going into the third frame. The Cardinals took the third with the same score as the second as they put Lake Erie on the brink going up 2-1.

The fourth stanza was a marathon as the teams traded leads throughout as they needed several extra points to decide the winner.

"We struggled to find the consistency and energy we needed to put forth a solid match," stated coach Stanton. "We had to just grind out a win that was not pretty or smooth. Too many untimely mistakes made the match harder than it needed to be, but we found a way and ground it out."

The Cardinals wrap up the Clarion tournament with a match against Fayetteville State tomorrow, September 2 at 10:00 a.m.