CHICAGO, Ill. - The Saint Mary's volleyball team fell in their 2021 season opener at North Park by a 3-0 (25-15, 25-15, 25-18) final in the Belles' first match in more than 660 days.

 

The two sides played a tight first set early on as neither side was able to build more than a three-point cushion. Saint Mary's capitalized on a service error to pull within a point at 7-6, but the Vikings put the next three points on the scoreboard for a 10-6 advantage. The Belles battled back to within two points at 11-9 after a kill by Megan Collantes and an attack error by North Park, but the Vikings used a 7-1 scoring spurt to claim an 18-10 lead. Saint Mary's got three points back, but the deficit was too great to overcome in a 25-15 first set final.

 

North Park carried that momentum over into the second set as the Vikings led from start to finish in a 25-15 set-win. Saint Mary's battled in the third set to try to keep the match alive. A pair of errors by North Park followed by a service ace by Claire Hennessy put the Belles up 3-0 quickly. Allison Thornton and Hannah Stacy tallied kills a short while later to give Saint Mary's a 6-2 edge. North Park rallied with a scoring run to go ahead 8-7 before Hennessy put down a kill to knot it at 8-8. After ties at 10-10 and 11-11, North Park claimed five of six points for a 16-12 edge. Saint Mary's cut the deficit to two after another Thornton kill and an attack error, but a couple of scoring spurts by the Vikings kept the home side up as North Park captured the 25-18 win in the set for the 3-0 decision.

 

Megan Collantes led Saint Mary's with six kills and 11 digs on the night. Colleen McCarthy added five kills and seven digs. Claire Hennessy tallied 16 assists with a service ace. Courtney Pelletier picked up eight digs.

 

The Belles (0-1) are back on the road on Friday when they travel to Rockford for matches against both the host Regents and Lawrence starting at 2:00 p.m. CDT.