Match 1 -- Rio Grande 3, Shawnee State 1 (25-22, 25-27, 17-25, 14-25)
 

In Saturday's opener against Rio Grande, Shawnee State got out to an excellent start as the Bears went on a 7-1 after facing an early deficit, taking an 8-4 lead as freshman standout Bree Hicks ripped off three kills while Reagan Lewis and Katelynn Boerger each added one apiece. A service ace sandwiched in between Shawnee State's kill streak allowed the Bears to take the four-point cushion.

Leading by a 12-10 margin later on in the opening set, Hicks added in two more kills while Boerger, Lewis and Reida each tallied a kill and Camille McIntosh a solo block in a 9-3 push for Shawnee State that gave the Bears a 22-13 lead. Rio Grande responded with an 8-2 run to cut the Shawnee State lead to 24-22, but could get no closer as Lewis' kill off of a Makaela Lovely pass gave the Bears a 25-22 win in the opening set.

Shawnee State continued its strong play to start the second set as Hicks and Whytney Faulkner posted two kills in the first four volleys of the second set while Reida added in another service ace and McIntosh another block to give the Bears a 6-1 advantage. McIntosh and Boerger followed that up with kills while a service ace by Lovely gave SSU a 9-5 advantage in the second frame.

Over the midway portion of the second frame, however, Rio Grande rallied as the RedStorm ripped off a 12-5 run to take a 17-14 lead. The set went back and forth from there -- with Shawnee State seemingly taking control after an 8-3 run by the Bears gave Shawnee State a 22-20 second set lead behind two kills and a block from Lewis as well as back-to-back blocks by Reida and Boerger. Following a timeout, however, Rio Grande regrouped, and battled off set point once by going on a 7-3 spurt to even the match at a set aside. Shawnee State took an early third set lead (4-2) and scored the opening point of the fourth set, but couldn't find the same momentum that it had in the opening pair of sets as Rio Grande took the match.

For the contest, Hicks led the Bears with 10 kills on a .219 attack percentage while Boerger and McIntosh each posted six kills while combining for five total blocks in the match. Lewis, who led the team with 14 assists, also added in six kills, five digs and two solo blocks as well.

Megan Steele led the backline defensively with 22 digs.

Match 2 -- Cumberland (Tenn.) 3, Shawnee State 0 (13-25, 18-25, 22-25)
 

In the second and final match of the day for Shawnee State against Cumberland, the Bears recovered from its first set setback to make matters competitive against the Phoenix in sets two and three. Shawnee State got kills from six different players (Katelynn Boerger, Nuria Calvo, Whytney Faulkner, Camille McIntosh, Hallie Oyer, and Natalie Reida) in the second set as well as a combined block from Oyer and Reida in the set, taking the lead seven different times early on in the frame and battling Cumberland to a slight 14-12 deficit through the first 26 volleys. However, a 9-3 push by the Phoenix allowed Cumberland to open up its second set advantage, and claim a 25-18 second set win to go up 2-0 in the match.

Shawnee State fell behind by a 3-1 margin to begin the third set, but proceeded to rally with a 10-6 push that featured two service aces from Ava Jenkins and Megan Steele, three kills by McIntosh, and two kills from Calvo as the Bears took an 11-9 advantage through 20 volleys.

When Cumberland rallied back to take a 17-15 advantage, the Bears responded with a 6-1 push that was capped by a kill from Hicks and a block from McIntosh, giving Shawnee State a 21-18 advantage. However, Cumberland answered with a 7-1 swing of its own, grabbing the set, 25-22, and the match as four attack errors, including two attacks that were blocked by the Phoenix frontline, forced SSU to take the loss.

Reagan Lewis ultimately led Shawnee State with 13 assists and eight digs, while Steele and Jenkins finished with 15 and 13 digs, respectively, to head the backline.

NEXT UP

Shawnee State will hit the road for its next four matches as the Bears hit high-gear in terms of River States Conference action. The Bears play Indiana-East in a road match that will commence Friday, Sept. 26 at 6 p.m., followed by a Saturday afternoon match at Midway (Ky.) at 3 p.m. Sept. 27.