COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado- The Howard Payne University volleyball team is playing in the Spike It Up Classic hosted by Colorado College this weekend. They started the tournament with a 3-1 win over Moravian College and a 3-0 loss to No. 4 Colorado College this afternoon.

Game One

The first set was very competitive, with Howard Payne leading most of the way. HPU was ahead 23-19 when Moravian went on a 6-0 run to claim the 25-23 victory in the first set.

The Lady Jackets got off to a rocky start in the second set trailing 9-3. Howard Payne was down 11-6 when they went on an 8-0 run to take the 3 point lead. The Greyhounds couldn't catch back up, and the Lady Jackets won the set 25-17.

The Lady Jackets went on to win the following two sets by scores of 25-19 and 25-22 to claim their first victory of the season.

Amaya Marshall led Howard Payne with a game-high 14 kills, followed by Mya Ross with 13 and Mitsue Rodriquez with eight. Abbie Knepper had four blocks. Kaitlyn Elsten dished out 23 assists, followed by Riley Britain with 19. Sydney Sullivan recorded 18 digs.

Kirah Dreisbach had 11 kills for Moravian and Natalia Matos had 24 assists. 

Game Two

The Lady Jackets stumbled to a 3-0 loss against No. 4 Colorado College in the second game of the afternoon. Scores from each set were 25-8, 25-12, and 25-11

Mya Ross had nine kills, Kaitlyn Elsten had 12 assists, and Sydney Sullivan had 12 digs.

Georgia Mullins had 14 kills for Colorado College and Jenny Jenks had 29 assists.

The Lady Jackets will play Occidental College and Belhaven College to wrap up the Spike It Up Classic tomorrow, Saturday, Sept. 11th.