Box Score PITTSBURGH, Pa. – Several players hit career high marks during the Norfolk State volleyball team's 3-1 loss to Niagara on Friday afternoon in the Panther Classic.

Junior Jessica Johnson posted a career-high 21 kills to lead the Spartan attack. NSU stayed with Niagara throughout most of the match at Pitt's Fitzgerald Field House. The Purple Eagles won the first set in extra points, 30-28, while the Spartans took the third set, 25-23.

Niagara (4-4), though, won the second and fourth sets by 25-17 and 25-22 scores to come away with the win.

Johnson hit .220 and tied her career high with 50 attacks. She was not the only player to have a career match, though. Seniors Adriana Ramos and Kylee Thiim and sophomore Sydney Dailey also reached career thresholds on the afternoon for NSU (0-7).

It was a somewhat wild match, with the Spartans statistically playing their worst in the third-set win. NSU fell behind early in the set, 5-2, but Thiim capped an 8-2 run with a kill to put the Spartans ahead by three. The Eagles turned right around and pulled ahead by two, 18-16, before NSU responded with an 8-1 run.

Up 24-19 at that point, the Spartans had to sweat it out as Niagara won four in a row before Johnson ended things with one last kill.

Thiim had a career-high eight kills and tied her career best with five blocks in the match.

Johnson and her teammates had to rally to force extra points in the first set. The Spartans were down early, 6-3, but rallied to tie it up at 9-9 when freshman Clarke Tyler put down a kill. NSU eventually called timeout down 19-15, but Johnson had a pair of kills during a 5-0 run for a 21-20 lead.

Another kill by Johnson and two errors on Niagara prevented the Eagles from taking the set after going up 24-22. They then scored twice to prevent NSU from taking the set, and the lead went back-and-forth a couple more times. An error on the Spartans and a block by Niagara gave the Eagles the first-set victory.

The Spartans did start off slow in the fourth set, calling timeout down 9-5. Tyler had two service aces to help tie the score up, but Niagara pulled away to the tune of a 19-12 lead. The Eagles were up 23-15 when NSU started a comeback. Johnson had three kills, and Tyler and junior Meghan Peji each had service aces during a 7-1 run.

The deficit, though, proved to be too much as an error on the Spartans finally ended the match.

The Eagles built a 5-0 lead in the second set, and kills by Thiim and Ramos twice got NSU to within two midway thought the stanza. From there, though, the Spartans were unable to string together two straight points as Niagara pulled away for an eventual eight-point victory.

Ramos finished the match with 18 digs, surpassing her previous career high. Dailey added a career-best eight kills, while freshman Hope Forsythe added nine.

Amanda Sedore and Nicole Matheis posted 19 and 14 kills, respectively, to pace the Eagle offense. Matheis also added 14 digs, while Rylee Hunt totaled a match-high 20 digs.

The Spartans hit .175 as a team, compared to .250 for the Eagles. Thanks to Tyler's four service aces, NSU finished with an 8-3 edge for the match in that category.

Junior Darcy Moore added her own double-double with 44 assists and 12 digs.

The Spartans take on Pittsburgh tomorrow at 12:30 p.m. and Duquesne at 4:30 p.m.