In a match with back and forth points throughout, the Charlotte 49ers Volleyball team fell to Winthrop last night, 3-2.

The 49ers opened the match with a dominating first set, winning it 25-17, but the Eagles got a good pep talk, because they came out swinging in the second set.

In the second set, Winthrop seemed to be a completely different team. They were flying all over the court to return the balls, and Charotte’s play got increasingly messy as the set went on. Charlotte committed six service errors in the second set, which Coach Yilmaz would later say is unacceptable.

In the third set, Winthop continued their impressive play and kept out-playing the 49ers on both ends. Charlotte’s youth came out in this match, as they appeared to be perplexed and outplayed throughout the set. Freshman Libero Shelby Green struggled throughout the match, even after a solid couple of games in this past weekends tournament. The starting Libero last year, Michelle Hovey, is still out for another three weeks with an injury to her wrist, which has really hurt the 49ers thus far.

The fourth set saw some intense play, with no one pulling ahead until the 49ers went on a run towards the end of the set. Coach Yilmaz called a timeout while down 18-16, and his team never looked back, winning the set 25-22.

With the fifth set, Halton Arena was finally abuzz and the 49ers tried their best to ride the momentum from the previous set; unfortunately they couldn’t pull ahead and win the match. Shelby Green mishandled a set, and Claire Kreuz committed a service error, (Charlotte had 14 in the match) to seal the victory for the Eagles.

Coach Yilmaz talked about the loss, saying that there are a lot of positives to take from this experience.

“We started great, with a 48 hitting percentage. The first set showed how efficient we can be, and the third set we fought back hard. This is a team that has struggled the past few years, and this is a great opportunity to teach our girls how to fight out of these situations.”

Yilmaz also mentioned that he understands his team is committing too many errors.

“We had too many errors in a row. We gave away 10 points out of 14 in the fourth set, four of those were miss-serves and four of those were attacking errors, which really accumulate to a point of not being able to come back.”

Britney Leigh Held, who was named the Conference USA setter of the week, talked about how honored she was to receive the award.

“It was a total team effort; It starts with the passers and ends with the hitters. I’m just the meat in-between the sandwich.”

When asked about how this team differs from last year’s, Leigh Held said that they have a huge chip on their shoulder.

“We have a lot more fire, and were called 12th in the conference, so that’s fueling us to try and be as good as we can.”

With the loss, the 49ers move to 3-2 on the season, and will play Princeton on Friday in Philadelphia, at the Temple Invitational.