STEUBENVILLE, Ohio – The Hilbert College women's volleyball team opened their 2016 Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference on the right foot.

The Hawks took the first game of the day with a 3-1 win over Pitt-Greensburg and then slipped in three to Franciscan University.

Hilbert (3-8) started slowly this morning and suffered a 25-18 1^st set loss to the Bobcats.  The Hawks woke up and recovered for three straight sets wining 25-21, 25-18, 25-19 to move to 1-0 in AMCC play.

Freshman Torianna LeWand contributed on offense and defense this afternoon as she led with 13 kills and added 23 digs and two service aces.  She trailed Anissa Quiroga's career best 25 digs and Kamalei Lene's five service aces.

Morgan Ott was credited with 23 assists and four blocks while Ashley Repine led with six blocks.  Serena Tecl posted double-digit digs with 13 uppers.

Greensburg earned 59 kills and made only five hitting errors while Hilbert committed 13 hitting errors and collected 45 kills (.239).

Coach Christopher Krueger was pleased with his team's attitude and performances today. 

"We came back with a fire under us after dropping the first set loss to Greensburg.  The attitude was completely different, in the past we probably weren't able to rally from down 0-1," said Krueger.

"I felt that Franciscan, as the preseason #1 favorites, were a step above where we are right now, but I thought we did a great job of holding our own against them in sets 1 and 2.  If we didn't start slow in either of those sets, we might have taken a set or two from them."

Hilbert closed the day with a 25-23, 25-23 and 25-14 losses.   The Hawks earned 28 kills but committed 21 hitting errors while the Barons were slightly better with 33 kills / 20 errors.  Franciscan picked up a few more points off service aces earning 9 to Hilbert's 3.

Amanda Binder earned nine kills with Morgan Ott assisting on 17 of Hilbert's 26.  Victoria Siracuse and Anissa Quiroga each posted 11 digs as Torianna LeWand chipped in 10.

After this weekend's set of AMCC games, the Hawks are ready to battle their next league opponent.  Hilbert will host the volleyball team's first BUFFALO CUUP game against Medaille College this Wednesday night at 7pm in the Hafner Recreation Center.