Nicholas Welsh
Staff Writer

After a West Coast road trip, a return to War Memorial Gym couldn’t pull the Dons out of their recent slump. The Dons were unable to keep pace with the LMU Lions in a 3-1 loss last Saturday, which came two days after the dropped a home match to the Pepperdine Waves, a game they also lost in four sets.

The game against LMU began in the Dons’ favor, and they were able to a 12-7 lead in the beginning of the first set. San Francisco then extended that lead to 20-13, but barely managed to hold on as LMU made a hard charge at the end of the set. The Lions’ run was silenced by sophomore outside hitter Emily Reed, however, who scored the winning point of the set.

In the next set, San Francisco allowed Loyola Marymount to open a large lead early in the match. The Dons saw the set slip away quickly, and they went down 25-12 without much of a fight.

The third set began just as the second did, with the Lions jumping out to a large lead. The Dons fared slightly better than they did in the previous set, but still found themselves playing catchup, and a 10-2 LMU run at the beginning of the set prevented them from ever being in contention.

The Lions were now in control, and easily took the fourth and final set 25-13. Despite the Dons’ promising first set victory, they fizzled down the stretch against the 22-5 (11-5 WCC) Lions.

The Dons faced Pepperdine on Thursday in a match that lasted four closely contested sets. USF managed to take the first set by a razor thin margin of 26-24. Despite starting out on top, they couldn’t reproduce their performance in any of the next three sets. In the end, the Dons couldn’t notch another set victory and were dealt a 3-1 loss.

San Francisco (12-16, 5-11 WCC), will have another opportunity to play at home in their final match of the season against the Pacific Tigers. Prior to this match, however, they have one final test on the road against the Santa Clara Broncos on Thursday, Nov. 20th at 6:00 p.m.