Box Score
ALLIANCE, Ohio – The sixth-seeded Otterbein volleyball team absorbed a disappointing loss Tuesday night in the quarterfinal round of the Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC) Tournament, falling victim to a Mount Union rally and suffering a five-set loss inside the McPherson Athletic and Athletic Complex.

Mount Union, seeded third in the eight-team bracket, overcame a 2-0 match deficit to win the final-three sets and improve to 19-8 on the year. The Raiders, winning by scores of 20-25, 22-25, 25-18, 25-22, 15-13, will move on to play No. 2 seed Heidelberg while the Cards unfortunately end the fall season at 16-14 overall.

Otterbein, eager for redemption after its four-set loss to the Purple Raiders on Saturday, got off to a hot start with a 6-1 lead before the hosts eventually tied the opener at 18 and 19. The Cards prevailed with another 6-1 run to end the frame, taking advantage of three-straight Mount Union attacking errors.

The second frame saw a tie at 12-12 before Otterbein took control yet again, capturing eight of the next 11 points to open a 20-15 advantage. That rally would force a Raider timeout and ultimately be enough to hang on for a 2-0 match lead.

Mount Union responded to stay alive in the third, winning the first-four points and then widening the margin to 14-6 soon after. The Raiders coasted from there, opening an 18-8 margin and ultimately slicing Otterbein's match lead in half.

Mount then captured a wild fourth set, in which it led 19-12 at one point before the Cards came flying back with a 9-3 rally to force a Purple Raiders timeout at 22-21. Otterbein then tied the set on the first point out of the break, but the hosts withstood the charge by winning the final three points to force a winner-take-all fifth frame.

The Raiders maintained that momentum as the fifth set commenced, sprinting to a 4-0 lead and forcing Otterbein head coach Monica Wright to burn a timeout. Down but not out, the Cards fought and scraped to catch up in the shortened set by rallying from a six-point hole to draw within 10-9, forcing the opposition to call a timeout of its own.

Mount Union would barely escape by the slimmest of margins, getting one last kill holding a 14-13 advantage to culminate the wild affair.

Junior Morgan Lowenkamp led Otterbein with 16 kills and a stellar .467 hitting percentage while Brett Bey and Olivia Harris each roped off 12 kills of their own. The 12 kills were a season-high for Harris, who just missed a double-double with nine digs. Setter Andrea Miller, who recently had two matches with 48 assists, topped that career-high by dishing out 49 helpers and also coming up with 10 digs.

Libero Ashlyn Leon led all players with 26 digs while senior Brenna McNally, playing in her last collegiate match, had 13 to go along with a match-high three service aces. Leon ends her freshman campaign with a solid 570 digs.

Mallory Sliman recorded a match-high 17 digs for Mount Union, which got 38 assists from Riley Schenk and 25 digs from Allison Baird.