Fremont, Neb. – The Mayville State University Volleyball team dropped a three-set match to #12 Midland Warriors in the opening round of the NAIA Volleyball National Tournament on Saturday by a final score of 23-25, 17-25, and 21-25. The Comets finish the season with a 23-11 record and advanced to their first-ever trip to the National Tournament.

Midland started the first set of the matching on a 10-4 run to jump pout to an early lead on the Comets. The Comets slowly started to climb back into the game trailing by six at 6-12 when MSU cut the lead to two at 12-14. The Warriors would stretch the lead back out to six shortly after at 13-19 but Mayville State continued to play hard and tied the game at 22 before Midland would score three of the last four points to take the first set 23-25.

Midland started the second set on a 6-1 run to jump out to an early lead. The Comets answered right back with a 4-1 run highlighted by a kill from Pyle. The Comets trailed the whole second set by five or more points and dropped the second set by a final of 17-25. The third set started the same way as the first two as the Comets struggled out of the gate down 9-4.

The Comets continued to answer the Warriors with mini runs to cut the lead to three but could not get any closer than that as the Comets dropped the third set by a final of 21-25 and the match 0-3. The Comets finished the game with 25 kills, 18 attacking errors, and a .078 hitting percentage. They also finished with 10.0 blocks, 22 assists, and 33 digs.

The Comets were led by Victoria Johnson in the front row with 10 kills, a .280 hitting percentage, and four blocking assists. Lily Pyle finished with four kills and four blocking assists. Ashley Pyburn also finished with four kills, she also had six blocking assists. Mason Hart in her final game as a Comet, finished with 25 digs in the back row. Jordyn Lucas finished with eight digs in the back row. Elora Passa and Rachel Hill tallied 20 of the 22 assists for the Comets.