MOREHEAD, Ky. – The Samford University volleyball team worked its way to a 1-1 split with a win against Akron University and a defeat to Marshall University on Friday, Sept. 18^th, inside Wetherby Gym at the Comfort Inn-Vitational hosted by Morehead State University.

The Bulldogs (4-5) thought to have turned a corner after a 3-0 (25-23, 25-21, 25-14) thumping of the Zips (6-5) in the early morning matchup of the invitational but faced adversity in the evening matchup against the Herd (9-4) and fell 3-0 (25-18, 25-23, 25-21).

"A little disappointed with our toughness tonight," Head Coach Derek Schroeder explained. "Marshall played great defensively and that frustrated us. I hope we take that and learn from it as a lot of SoCon teams are very scrappy defensively."

Offensively the team had quite possibly their best outing of the season as they hit .414 for the match with a high of .611 in the first set of play. Samford only committed 10 attack errors in the match thanks in part to a pair of outstanding performances from junior Gabbi Greenwald and redshirt sophomore T.J. Russell.

Greenwald paced the Bulldogs with nine kills with no attack errors while Russell contributed eight kills with no errors.

Freshman Alana Schouten helped Samford in the match with tough serving throughout and it showed as she posted five of the Bulldogs eight service aces.

After a six hour break from action, the Bulldogs looked to continue on the offensive surge the team founded in the match against Akron.

Marshall would have none of it as the Herd stifled the Bulldogs offensive machine and forced the team to play their game.

The Bulldogs dropped the match with offensive numbers contrasting to the ones put up earlier in the day. The team committed a total nine attack errors, just one shy of the 10 committed during the entire first match, in the first set alone.

The team responded in the second and third sets to give the Herd an intense battle. However, the duo of Taylor Pelton and Cassie Weaver proved to be too much as the pair posted 15 kills and 14 kills respectively in the match. Defensively, it was libero Allie Kellerman who stole the show as she recorded 19 digs in the three-set match.

Samford will close out the invitational against host Morehead State on Saturday, Sept. 19^th, at 12:30 p.m. (CST).