ST. CATHARINE, Ky. - Volleyball dropped a 3-0 (25-19, 30-28, 25-18) match at St. Catharine Saturday afternoon. Although the Bears (12-11, 5-6 MSC) put up three hard-fought battles, the Patriots (12-9, 6-4 MSC) came out on top in the closing points each time to claim the victory in a key MSC battle.

As a team, Shawnee State actually had 42 kills in their 130 attempts while St. Catharine tallied just 43 kills in 136 attempts. However, St. Catharine was able to knock down eight different SSU attacks at the net via blocks while the Bears blocked just four tries. Shawnee State also held a 56-52 advantage in kills for the match.

Shawnee State was led offensively by junior middle hitter Paige Zelich who recorded 14 kills with just two attack errors in 23 attempts to finish with a .522 hitting percentage. Kristi Humble finished the match with seven kills. Bonnie Huesing led the Bears with 21 assists while Hannah Gephart added 18 more to share the setting duties.

Defensively, Carly Mazza led the Bears with 17 digs in the match. Madison Smith also recorded double figures with 10 digs in the match while Kirsti Yates and Gephart recorded nine and eight digs, respectively.

Volleyball has a busy back end of the week coming up as the Bears will play a match four straight days starting this Thursday and continuing through Sunday, alternating home and away each day. The first of those matches will be at Pikeville Thursday at 6:30 p.m.