The Dominican University women's volleyball team dropped the first set 25-18 but refused to go quietly, falling in five sets (25-18, 25-27, 23-25, 25-21, 16-14) to the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference (NACC) leading Concordia University Wisconsin Falcons on the road Saturday night.
 
"This group showed a lot of character and fearlessness tonight," said Stars' head coach Jeanne Czipri. "Our backs were against the wall for much of the match and I think we surprised a lot of people with the fight and grit we played with."
 
Facing a 16-6 deficit in the second set, Dominican rallied to a 27-25 win in the second set to even the match at one set apiece.
 
After Dominican claimed the third set and the Falcons the fourth, Concordia Wisconsin seemed poised to run away with the fifth, leading 14-9, the Stars rallied to score the next five points, capped by a Rosalyn Wyse kill to even the set at 14-14.  However, the Falcons regrouped using a block and a Dominican error to close out the victory.
 
Wyse finished with a team-high 15 kills and Kendyl Todd added 12 as Dominican hit .132 for the match with 48 kills to 25 errors on 174 total attempts.  Sophomore setter Jackie Mursuli doled out 30 assists and added seven kills on 17 attacks.
 
Defensively, the Stars posted 13 total blocks, five apiece for Todd, Mursuli and freshman Stephanie Cole while Tessa Griparis added four block assists of her own.  In the back row, four Stars collected double-digit digs including Mursuli who rounded out a double-double with 12 digs.  Audrey Wyse collected a match-high 23 digs while her sister Rosalyn tallied 19.
 
The loss drops Dominican to 8-16 on the year, 6-2 in the NACC, with a trip to Aurora University on the schedule for Tuesday night at 7:00 p.m.