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COLUMBIA, S.C. – The Kennesaw State volleyball team dropped its Gamecock Invitational opener Saturday afternoon, falling to Maryland in three sets, 25-18, 25-13, 25-16.
 
How it Happened: After trading points early, the Terrapins (7-4) earned the edge with a 4-0 run to lead 9-6. The Owls (7-4) cut the deficit to one, 13-12, following back-to-back kills from Lauren Chastang, but could not work their way in front as a 5-1 swing gave Maryland a 22-17 lead. The Terrapins scored eight of the final 10 points to win the set 25-18, hitting .591 for the set.
 
The second set started out as another back-and-forth affair until Maryland pulled in front with runs of three and four points, respectively, for a 12-7 lead. The Terrapins pushed their lead to as high as 20-9 in the set. KSU hit -.120 in the second set, compared to .412 for Maryland who went on to win the set 25-13.
 
Tied 6-6 to open the third set, Maryland pulled in front with a 7-1 run to lead 13-7. KSU pulled back to within two, 15-13, after a 3-0 run capped off by a block from Chastang and Jasmine Brown. The Terrapins responded right away, though, ripping off the next five straight points before closing out the set on a 4-1 run to win 25-16.
 
Notes: The loss marks the first three-set loss by the Owls this season … Quin Sutphin logged her second straight match in double-figures with a team-high 11 kills while adding two solo blocks … Lauren Chastang was the second Owl in double-digits with 10 kills … Shelby Dennis led the way with nine digs, followed by six each from Karlee Groover and Chastang … Lexi Broadwater continued her 11 assists per set average, recording 33 total in the match … the Owls' .102 hitting percentage for the match marked a season-low … on the flipside, Maryland's .435 hitting percentage is the highest of any KSU opponent this year.
 
Quotes: Head Coach Keith Schunzel
On the match…
"Maryland played a tremendous match. They played really clean and they put a ton of pressure on us with their serve and that kind of set the tone early. Saying that, we hit .300 in the first set, but they ended up hitting nearly .600 because they were so clean. That's something we talked about in the locker room, we have to find a way to pressure a team, whether its through our serve, our block, maybe through a super high-level sideout play. [Maryland] just played a very high-level match."
 
On takeaways from the loss…
"I thought in set three, despite the score, our pass turned a little bit. It's not like we passed horribly today, they were just taking a lot of risks and not missing a lot of serves. I thought our offensive aggression and mentality throughout the match was actually really good. So that was not the issue, the issue was we could not slow them down. The times we were getting them off the net, our block wasn't lined up in the right places or if our block was lined up in the right place, we weren't able to dig and transition. I'm happy with our team and where we are at, it's not like we didn't compete hard, we just got beat. Maryland played really well and we just got beat." 
 
Up Next: The Owls close out non-conference play Sunday afternoon, taking on hosts South Carolina at 12 p.m.