CINCINNATI, Ohio – The Wilmington College women’s volleyball team opened its 2018 season with a pair of three-set defeats, falling to Cincinnati Christian University 25-17, 25-11, 27-25 and Mount St. Joseph University 25-15, 25-16, 25-18 in a tri-match at MSJ Saturday.

“We had stretches of play that were very encouraging for our future as well as stretches where we struggled to finish and score points,” c0ach Tim O’Brien said. “Our team is very young and I thought today was a great learning environment for our players.”

CCU would go on a 4-2 run and earn two match points, but a service error and two attack errors gave Wilmington a set point at 25-24. The two Eagle kills and Quaker attack error that followed gave CCU the match.

Wilmington tallied 20 kills as a team including five from Jillian Wesco and four from both Mariella Szrom and Karrah Wind. Setter Jacie Koontz dished out 12 assists while Wesco led the squad in the back row with 12 digs.

In the match against MSJ, Amber Rox led Wilmington offensively with five kills while Wesco had four. Similar to the CCU match, Wesco led the team in digs with 14 while Householder had 12 and Koontz finished with 10.

Cailey Plemmons finished with 13 kills and one error on 27 swings for a .444 attack percentage. Setter Sydney Wilzbach dished out 34 assists.

Wilmington (0-2) hosts Franklin College in the home-opener Wednesday evening.