MILWAUKEE, Wis. – Milwaukee Area Technical College's first-ever appearance in the NJCAA Divsion II National Tournament at Alliant Energy PowerHouse arena in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, didn't go as Stormers' head coach Shel DeLisle had hoped.

Entering the 20-team tournament as the No. 17 seed, MATC had its fair share of struggles creating momentum against No. 16 seed Harford. The Stormers led by no more than two points throughout the entire match, leaving them to fall in three-sets (18-25, 19-25, 23-25) against the undefeated Fighting Owls (23-0) Wednesday morning during the opening round of the tournament.

"I think [playing in] a bigger tournament earlier in the year would have been helpful," coach DeLisle said. "I think they were a little overwhelmed by all the external noise and I think when it came to it on the court they kind of forgot their discipline and focus."

The first set was a back-and-forth affair that saw 10 ties before the Stormers clung to a 15-14 lead. However, they weren't able to overcome their lackluster hitting-percentage (.-100) and multiple errors (8) during the opening set. In comparison, Harford showcased a strong attack by posting a first-set hit-percentage of .333% primarily in part to Laura Piva, who led the Fighting Owls with nine of her team-high 21 kills.

Things didn't get any easier for MATC as it quickly found itself trailing 13-3 in the following set. With all the momentum in Harford's favor, Stormers' freshman Savannah Raymer ended the bleeding with a huge kill that helped spark a 11-3 run in favor of MATC. The momentum shift allowed the Stormers to storm back and cut their deficit to 17-16 before Harford closed the set on a 8-3 run.

"That is their go-to this year," DeLisle said of her team's 11-3 run during the second set. "There has not been a match pretty much all year where we have not been down 10-plus points and have come back."

Much like the second set, the Stormers continued to battle the entire way during the third set, but ultimately fell 25-23 to seal Harford's victory in straight-set fashion.

The combined 15-point defeat snapped the Stormers (34-7) 11-game win streak. They'll head to the loser's bracket of the tournament, where they will face the loser of (2) Parkland vs. (15) Messa at 11 a.m. Thursday morning.

"To be honest I think we need to stop worrying about what's on the other side of the court and focus on what we do well on our side of the court," DeLisle said. "We failed to do that in our first match today. We have a tempo [that] we run, we transition quickly, and we are in position on defense, only we weren't this morning because we were worried about what was on the other side of the net…we need to do what we do well [heading into the loser's bracket]."

STAT BOOK
Rachel Krueger paced the Stormers with eight digs, six kills, and three aces. Sam Siehr added six kills, six digs and an ace. Hannah Council contributed a team-high 15 assists and 10 digs, which was one more dig than teammate Kimberly Busateri. Paige Siehr chipped in seven digs, three kills and one block.