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SPARTANBURG, S.C. – Even with a three set loss to Atlantic Sun Conference foe USC Upstate 3-0 (21-25, 22-25, 12-25) on Tuesday night, it was still a historic night for Kennesaw State volleyball as senior setter Sara Metroka tied the school record for sets played, earning her 396^th in the Hodges Center.
 
Metroka tied the record of Sabrita Gulley that was set back in the 2010 season after starting in all three sets for the Owls during the match at Upstate.
 
The match marked the first contest of the second round of A-Sun play for KSU with the Owls now sitting at 8-12 overall and 3-7 in the league standings.

"This is as disappointed as I have been all year with our team," Kennesaw State head coach #Keith Schunzel said. "We talk constantly about having pride in putting on the KSU jersey and competing and about giving maximum effort on every play. Tonight we saw none of those, as we were outworked and outcompeted in every facet of the game, hoping that Upstate would roll over and give us the match, unfortunately that's not how it works in Division I volleyball and we found that out the hard way tonight.
 
"While this is certainly not the end of our season, we took a big step in the wrong direction tonight in terms of program culture and team identity. And that's incredibly frustrating as the leader of this program. We have two days to figure out how to right the ship and see if we can compete harder on Friday night."
 
After USC Upstate (3-17, 3-8 A-Sun) went out to the 5-0 lead in the opening set, the Owls managed to tie things up at 12-12 after a Toure Hopkins kill with KSU grabbing its first lead of the match just one point later on the Hopkins ace. The two then played to seven more ties before the Spartans went on a 3-0 run to take an early match lead with the 25-21 set win.
 
Down by two in the second set at 10-8, KSU then found the offensive rhythm, going on a 4-0 run and forcing the USC Upstate timeout at 12-10 after a pair of kills from Kelly Marcinek. With the Owls holding a 15-14 lead over the Spartans it was Upstate that pulled through, going on a 6-1 run to hit the 20-point mark at 20-16. KSU managed to cut the lead down to just two but not before the Spartans took the 25-22 win.
 
In the third it was KSU that erased a 4-0 Upstate run in the early portions of the set, tying it up at five with an ace from Camille Pedraza. But it was Upstate that strung together a 10-1 rally following the ace to give the Spartans a 16-8 lead as the home team took the 25-12 set win for the match.
 
During Metroka's historic night the setter was good for 29 assists, putting her just 33 shy of reaching the 4,000 mark for her career.
 
Marcinek again had a standout night offensively, putting up 10 kills and a .320 attack percentage while Cierra Royster chipped in with 10 of her own.
 
Defensively it was Pedraza who came up with 11 digs while Royster was good for a pair of blocks.
 
The Owls now return home to the KSU Convocation Center where they are 6-2 on the year for a pair of weekend matches starting with Stetson on Friday, Oct. 25 at 7 p.m. ET.
 
To keep up with the latest Kennesaw State volleyball news follow the team on Twitter @KSUOwlNation and @KSUOwlsVB or by liking Kennesaw State University on Facebook.
 
Fans are reminded that tickets to all 2013 home volleyball contests are free throughout the year.
 

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