Waltham, Mass. – The Mount Saint Mary College Women's Volleyball team closed out play at the Brandeis Invitational on Saturday afternoon with a pair of non-conference losses. The Knights fell to Smith in five sets by scores of 25-20, 25-14, 10-25, 17-25, 10-25 and closed the tournament with a 14-25, 10-25, 21-25 defeat at the hands of Wellesley.
 
Smith 3 – Mount Saint Mary 2
The Knights jumped out to a two set lead in their first match of the day, but committed 16 attack errors over the final three frames to fall to 1-1 on the season in five set contests. The Mount committed just three miscues over the first two sets of the match and hit an efficient .322 in the second stanza.
 
Sophomore Madelyn Barberan (Fishkill, N.Y.) paced the offensive attack for the Mount with 10 kills and finished off a double-double with 13 digs. Ally Klesin (Glendale, N.Y.) and Nicole Spinelli (Wantagh, N.Y.) each put away eight winners, with Spinelli hitting .368 and adding three service aces and three total blocks.
 
Junior setter Kim Gries (Hicksville, N.Y.) handed out a team-high 28 assists in the match and lifted 10 digs, while Chelsea Barberan (Fishkill, N.Y.) continued her strong early season play with 19 digs, three assists and a service ace.
 
Mount Saint Mary hit .138 for the match against Smith and recorded 18 service aces, led by seven from senior Julimar Figueroa (Dorado, Puerto Rico) who added six digs for the Knights.
 
Wellesley 3 – Mount Saint Mary 0
The Knights finished the tournament with a three set loss to Wellesley, seeing their opponent record 13 more kills in the contest to go along with a 4-0 edge in total team blocks and a 61-49 advantage in digs.
 
Chelsea Barberan lifted 20 of the team's 49 digs in the contest and is averaging 4.12 digs per set through the season's first four contests. Figueroa and Madelyn Barberan each finished the match with eight digs apiece for the Mount.
 
Spinelli finished off a solid weekend with a team-high seven kills, hitting .364, to go along with two aces and a pair of digs. Morgan Burke (Ringwood, N.J.) put away six kills for the Knights with freshman Danielle Kralik (Bedford Hills, N.Y.) adding three winners. Courtney Blum (Belle Harbor, N.Y.) handed out a career-high 19 assists for the Knights, adding a pair of aces and four digs.
 
Wellesley was led by eight kills from Samantha Ostenso with Michelle Li finishing with 27 assists and 11 digs. Samantha Hoang led the team with 19 digs and three service aces.
 
At 1-3 overall on the season, Mount Saint Mary opens the home schedule on Tuesday when it welcomes New Rochelle to the Kaplan Center. Match time with the Blue Angels is scheduled for 7:00 p.m.