The St. Lawrence University Volleyball team split a pair of matches Friday night on the first day of competition at the Garden State Challenge Tournament in New Jersey. The Saints downed St. Joseph's College from Long Island in the first match of the night by a 3-0 score but were upended 3-0 by host Fairleigh Dickinson University (Florham) in the nightcap.

The Saints (2-5) won the match against St. Joseph's by set scores of 25-14, 25-17 and 25-19 as seniors Lexi Brown contributed 11 kills and Cristina Deschaine added nine kills while first-year Grace Kelly added 10 kills. Katie Kull handed out 39 assists and served three aces while Mariah Dignan led the defense with 12 digs.

Against Fairleigh Dickinson, the Saints fell by set scores of 25-13, 25-22 and an exciting 29-27 to finish the match. Brown added 11 kills and Kull added 30 assists while Dignan had 23 digs. St. Lawrence battled back in the third set to knot the score at 22-22 and the teams exchanged points with great back and forth play until the Devils pulled out the 29-27 victory in the final set.

"Tonight consisted of two matches with a lot of inconsistency," said Head Coach Shelly Roiger. "We dug too many holes early in sets and then played great volleyball to get back into sets two and three. We need to learn to just flat out work harder and increase our desire when it's 0-0."

St. Lawrence continues play in the Garden State Challenge traveling to Kean University for matches against Haverford and Kean Saturday.

"We face two excellent opponents tomorrow (Saturday) in our final preparations for Liberty League play," said Roiger. "Our work ethic needs to be outstanding against two teams with a ton of athleticism."