DEERFIELD, Ill. - Battling back to even the score midway through the match, Trinity International struggled to hold the momentum, falling in four sets to the visiting St. Xavier Cougars 25-21, 23-25, 25-13, 25-19, Thursday night inside Van Dixhorn Arena.

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Freshman Ashlyn Spay led the attack, finishing with a team-high nine kills. Defensively, libero Becca Kowalczuk picked up 14 digs as the only Trojan in double figures.

St. Xavier (11-7, 3-1 CCAC) used a five-point run early in the first set to claim a 10-5 lead; the Trojans (4-14, 1-3 CCAC) battled back, using a 6-2 run including kills from Spay and Lexie Voss to pull back to within a point at 12-11. Trinity would keep things close but were never able to move back in front and despite fending off two set points would drop the opener 25-21.

The Trojans would respond in the second, scoring four points on three kills from three different players to open the set. St. Xavier would work to eventually pull even at 18-18, but TIU never surrendered the lead throughout the set, using a 4-1 run to pull ahead 22-19. Spay would even the match at one set apiece with her kill at 25-23.

The Cougars responded by jumping out to a 7-3 lead in the third game, and would lead wire-to-wire. Trinity took advantage of three straight SXU errors to pull within a point at 9-8, but St. Xavier followed that up with six straight points, and closed out the set on a 9-1 run to claim the lead in the match.

A slow start in the fourth ultimately put the Trojans in too big of a deficit to overcome, as SXU scored eight of the first ten points for a six-point lead. Trinity matched St. Xavier point-for-point the rest of the way, even tying the score at 16-16 with a Spay service ace. Another big run for the Cougars resulted in a 23-17 lead however, as the visitors closed out the match on a 5-2 run.

The Trojans will now prepare for Saturday's tri-match at Moody Bible (Ill.), which kicks off at noon. Trinity will match up with Randall (Okla.) at 12:00 p.m., and the host Archers at 2:00 p.m.