BILLINGS, Mont. – The Montana State University Billings volleyball team fell Central Washington University 3-1 (25-17, 23-25, 25-14, 25-13) in Alterowitz Gym Saturday.
 
MSUB (7-19, 4-12 Great Northwest Athletic Conference) came out fighting early, but could not sustain the effort as CWU (16-8, 11-5 GNAC) proved too much to handle in the final two sets.
 
Bridgette Webb paced CWU with 16 kills. Ashley Kaufman finished with 13 kills and nine digs while Makala Swart added 12 kills. Kyla Morgan had a game high 28 digs and Gaby Aihara finished with a team high 32 assists.
 
Combined, CWU had a hitting percentage of .243 and hled MSUB to a .159. Out matched on both sides, CWU had 57 kills, 56 assists and 74 digs. MSUB ended with 42 kills, 41 assists and 52 digs. CWU did commit more errors then MSUB with 22 compared to MSUB's 19.

In a thrilling second set, the two teams exchanged point after point with neither side leading by more than two until a kill from Maddi Vigil pushed MSUB's advantage to 21-18. But a 3-0 run by CWU brought things right back to a tie at 21-21. Tied at 23-23, CWU committed two costly errors to give MSUB the second set victory 25-23.
 
CWU seemed to turn things up a notch on both sides of the ball the final two sets. In set three, the Wildcats posted a match high .400 combined hitting percentage while limiting MSUB to .069 and taking a two sets to one advantage on a 25-14 win.
 
Continuing to ride the momentum built form the third set, CWU did not take long to finish off the Yellowjackets. Carrying a .310 hitting percentage while MSUB committed costly errors and hit .167, CWU won the fourth set 25-13 and the match 3-1.   
 
Vigil had a team high 13 kills while hitting .167. Joelle Mahowald led MSUB in hitting efficiency (much as she has done all year) with a .353 hitting percentage. Bayli Monck had a team high 20 digs and Hannah Hashbarger produced 39 assists. Marissa Logozzo supplied 10 assists from her libero position in the back line.  
 
"It was s hard way to end our home matches," said head coach Casey Williams. "We had a lot of missed opportunities and failed to stop CWU's runs. I thought our passing was great tonight and at moments our offense was aggressive. Unfortunately it was not enough to pull out the win."
 
THE BUZZ: Marissa Logozzo was named the Saint Vincent Healthcare Player of the Game by passing 2.3 and adding 10 digs.
 
UP NEXT: The Yellowjackets are on the road to play Saint Martin's University and Seattle Pacific University.