CLARION, Pa. – The Golden Eagle volleyball team finished their final match of the 2021 Tony Banner Memorial Tournament on Saturday, falling 3-1 (23-25, 25-15, 21-25, 20-25) to Saginaw Valley State at Tippin Gymnasium.
 
Other than the second set, which was a runaway victory for the Clarion (2-2), the match was an evenly-paced contest. Julia Piccolino found some of the form she showed during the spring season, recording a match-high 16 kills as well as 15 digs for a double-double. Cassidy Snider continued the torrid start to her season with a 13-kill, 19-dig double-double, and Lauren Aichinger added 11 kills and five blocks. London Fuller recorded a double-double of her own with 38 assists and 10 digs.
 
Defensively, Abigail Selfridge capped her strong opening weekend with a match-high 32 digs. That paced the quintet of five Golden Eagles in double figure digs, which also included Addison Conti.
 
The Golden Eagles had the opportunity to take the first set from the Cardinals as they built a 21-18 lead, thanks in part to a couple of errors by Saginaw Valley State. The Cardinals turned the tables with a 5-0 run, taking the lead at 23-21 on a block by Haley Clum and Olivia Waszak. Aichinger responded with a kill to slice the lead to 23-22, and the middle did so again two points later to make it 24-23, but an error by Clarion led to a Saginaw Valley State win.
 
Clarion ran away with the second set from essentially the word jump, tearing off a 7-0 run early on to build a 14-5 lead. The rally started in earnest with two straight kills by Piccolino, and was punctuated when Snider fired off an ace to expand the lead to nine points. The Cardinals pulled close with a 6-0 run to make it 18-14, but Clarion erased that with an identical stretch to make it 24-14. Snider finished off the set with a kill at 25-15 to tie the match.
 
In the end, though, Saginaw Valley State kept Clarion at arm's length in the final two sets to take the win. The deficit was just 20-19 in the third after a kill by Piccolino, but a slew of errors eventually gave the Cardinals a 25-21 win. An almost identical circumstance happened in the fourth set, with Conti recorded a kill to cut the deficit to 20-19 before a 5-1 Cardinal run locked up the win.