BURNABY, B.C. – The Montana State Billings volleyball team dropped a 3-1 (17-25, 25-19, 20-25, 16-25) Great Northwest Athletic Conference volleyball match at Simon Fraser University Saturday evening.  With the loss, the Yellowjackets fell to 2-16 on the year and 2-7 in conference play, while SFU improved to 2-12 and 2-8 in conference play.

“We weren't able to get it done tonight,” MSUB head coach Steve Smith said. “We had to make some changes to our lineup tonight as we didn't have our two outside hitters and we struggled.  Melissa Porter had a good match tonight and Hannah (Johnson) was playing out of position and she did really well for us as she played side-to-side.”

The Jackets were led by 10 kills from junior Melissa Porter as she hit a season-high .529 with just one error in 17 attempts.  Sophomore Hannah Johnson had eight kills in 31 attempts and hit .194 as well.  Porter had one solo block and led the team with four block assists. 

As a team, the Yellowjackets hit .183 with 40 kills and 17 errors on the evening.  They had 36 assists with 43 digs and eight total blocks.

SFU was led by four players with double-digit kills led by Jennifer Nielson who had a match-high 19 kills.  Marina Liarsky chipped in 11 kills while KJ Fridfinnson and Cheryl Windhorst each had 10.  Jordan Drezet led the match with 52 assists.

The Clan hit .260 on the evening with 64 kills, but committed 26 errors.  It had 60 assists and 58 digs to go along with five total blocks.

SFU opened the match with a 25-17 win.  MSUB hit .212 in the opening frame and committed a match-low one error, but only had eight kills in the set.  Conversely, the Clan hit a match-high .432 with an impressive 22 kills and six errors.

MSUB regrouped and played its best set of the match and evened things with a 25-19 win in the second set.  The Jackets tallied 14 kills and three errors in the set and hit a match-high .324.

After the intermission, the Clan regained the lead with a 25-20 win in set three and cruised to a 25-16 win in the fourth set to claim the victory.

The Yellowjackets return to action at Central Washington and at Northwest Nazarene next Thursday and Saturday, respectively, then will return home to host Western Oregon Oct. 21 at 7 p.m. in Alterowitz Gymnasium.