CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. – The volleyball team ended its weekend road trip with a second four-set loss (26-28, 26-24, 19-25, 18-25), this time at the hands of one of the top teams in the Southern Conference, Chattanooga, Saturday afternoon at The McKenzie Arena.
 
The first two sets required extra volleyball. Chattanooga (20-4, 9-2 SoCon) was able to fend off two Terrier set points to win the first. Wofford (16-15, 6-6 SoCon) was able to convert in the second on a block by senior Liz Buterbaugh and sophomore Alex Holland to tie the match.
 
The Mocs stepped it up a notch after the intermission. They led by as many as eight points in each of the final two sets, closing out the match with their 20th win of the season.
 
"We played a tough two sets, but couldn't find an answer after the break," said head coach Lynze Roos. "We served well and had some strong passes, but our errors did us in. We never really converted our transition points with consistency."
 
The Mocs outhit Wofford .207 to .128 on the afternoon. They held the Terriers to .025 in the third before hitting .410 with 16 kills and no attacking errors in the fourth.
 
The match's largest advantage came on the ground, where Chattanooga had 94 digs on Wofford's 180 attacks. Meanwhile, the Terriers dug 75 of UTC's 179 hits. Four Mocs finished with double-figure digs, led by Catherine Chason's team-high 26. Senior libero Jessica Graham had a match-high 29 for Wofford.
 
On offense, sophomore Bella Santoro and redshirt freshman Lauren Miller each tallied a match-high 15 kills. Santoro was impressive, hitting .226 with just three errors and adding 14 digs for her 12th double-double of the season. UTC's Sarah Batterton also had 15 kills and led all players in hitting percentage at .500.
 
The Terriers out-blocked Chattanooga 11-9. Freshman middle Colleen Reilly had a match-high seven blocks.
 
A highly intense opening set saw Wofford rally from eight points down to make a game of it. Chattanooga took a 21-13 lead on one of Allie Davenport's eight kills in the match. However, Wofford responded with an 8-0 run. Miller and Reilly blocked Davenport to tie it up at 21.
 
UTC called time and scored the next three points to earn three chances at a 1-0 lead. Again, Wofford rallied out of it with a kill by Miller and two by Santoro to get to a 24-all tie. The Terriers would earn two chances to win the set themselves, but the Mocs fought off both. An attacking error from Holland flipped the advantage back to Chattanooga and Kristy Wieser was able to put the set away.
 
Once more, another set played close. At first, Chattanooga looked to be on its way to an easy two-set lead with an 11-5 advantage, but the Terriers came back to tie it at 12 and completed a 9-1 run ahead 14-12.
 
Wofford never led by more than two the rest of the way, but never surrendered its lead. UTC tied the score at 22, 23 and again at 24 before a Holland kill gave Wofford its first chance at the set. Holland then stepped up again, going up for a block with Buterbaugh on attack from Julimar Alvarado, leveling the match at a set apiece.
 
The Terriers came out of the locker room with the first three points of set three, Chattanooga recovered quickly, going on top 6-5 and using a 10-3 run to turn the set completely around, 21-13. It was too much for Wofford to overcome, going down 2-1 heading to the fourth set.
 
Wofford never had a lead in the fourth. Tied at eight, Chattanooga used another 10-3 run to create separation and win the match in four.
 
The Wofford volleyball team returns home for three of the regular season's final four matches. Its first comes Wednesday night against ETSU. First serve is set for 6 p.m., inside Benjamin Johnson Arena.