FAIRFIELD, CONN. (November 13, 2014)—Three Pioneers reached double-digit kills Thursday night as the Sacred Heart women's volleyball team lost a heart breaker in five sets to Bryant University. Sarah Krufka (Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif.) led the way with 15 kills with Tori Kemper (Banks, Ore.) and Jene Lee (San Dimas, Calif.) right behind her tallying 13 and 11 respectively. The loss drops SHU to 9-18 on the season and 4-9 in Northeast Conference play.

Knowing that this match could determine who makes the NEC Tournament, both teams came out fighting. The Pioneers had one of the best sets of the season to open the match hitting .270 collectively with a 57% sideout percentage. With SHU and Bryant neck-and-neck through most of the set, the score tied on 11 occasions with the lead changing hands six times. With the score knotted at 14, a pair of Bulldog errors tipped the scales in the Pioneers' favor. Bryant managed one point on a kill from Alexandra Lunsford before Lee smashed the ball down for a kill sparking an eight-point SHU run which put the Pioneers on set-point. Several SHU errors allowed Bryant to rally late, but a kill from freshman Makayla Dole (Cypress, Calif.), who had four kills in the set, dealt the final blow giving Sacred Heart the 25-18 win.

SHU took the first point of the second set, but the Bulldogs were quick to rebound taking the next four for an early lead. On Dole's three-point service-run, the Pioneers tied the score at four, but a kill from Bryant's Natascha Scarff put the Bulldogs back in the lead. Back-and-forth action left neither team with more than a two-point lead at any given time before Bryant strung together three points towards the end for a 22-19 lead forcing Sacred Heart Head Coach Rob Machan to call a time out. The Bulldogs earned another point coming out of the break before consecutive attack errors made it 23-21. That would be all the Pioneers would get as Bryant combined a kill from Kiley Robbins and a SHU attack error for the 25-21 win.

Sacred Heart never seemed to get its footing in the third set. After exchanging the opening points, four-straight kills for Scarff broke the game open in Bryant's favor, 6-2. The Pioneers remained close throughout the set, always looking for the opening to work their way back in, but with the Bulldog's leading 14-11, Bryant's offense came alive for an 11-4 run taking a 2-1 match lead with the 25-15 win.

The fourth started out close with the lead tying six times before either team reached 10 points. With the Pioneers down 9-8, Ana Gonzalez's (Guaynabo, Puerto Rico) three-point service run boosted SHU to a small 11-9, but that would be all it took. Sacred Heart spent the remainder of the set defending that lead. Back-to-back blocks by Katie Direnzo (Shelton, Conn.) and Marie Zimmerman (Denver, Colo.) led the Pioneers' to their biggest lead of five points, 20-15. Kemper, who hit a set-leading five kills, found the ground for the final point of the game delivering SHU the 25-21 win and pushing the match to a decisive fifth set.

SHU got off on the right foot in the final set earning the first two points with a kill from Krufka and an ace from Dole, but the Bulldogs came back to tie the score at three and take the lead, 6-3, with Carissa Gould's five-point service run. The Pioneers managed just one more point, a kill from Lee, as Bryant dominated the rest of the set for a 15-4 victory.

The Pioneers will host Central Connecticut State Sunday at 1:00 p.m. in their final home game. Before the game, we will celebrate our three graduating seniors with a brief ceremony.