Irish Edge Bulldogs

DAYTON - The Dayton Bulldogs fought the Irish un­til the end, but they could not hang on to the momentum with which they started their four-game match against DeSales.

They won the first game 25-18, but despite the fired-up hometown crowd, they lost each of the last three games by a small point spread 22-25, 24-26 and 23-25.

"I wasn't disappointed in the way we played," head coach Shannon Turner said. "But the Irish picked up ev­erything. We made more un­forced errors and played too tired at the end of the match." The Bulldogs' offense came out strong in the be­ginning and remained disci­plined enough to stay fair­ly even with the energetic DeSales team, which lost against Waitsburg-Prescott Thursday, the cross-valley team Dayton beat earlier in the season.

The Bulldogs are now 2-3. Particularly the last two games could easily have gone Dayton's way with good individual performanc­es. The two teams exchanged places as the leading point scorers several times, but the Irish had just a bit more of an edge. "We started out hot and ran out of steam," Turner said.

Dayton vs DeSales

25-18, 22-25, 24-26, 23-25

Nikki Lambert: 14 out of 15 serves and 25 digs

Sarah Mascall: 5 kills

Amanda Melton: 6 kills and 1 block

Kayla Turner: 15 assists and 13 kills

Darci Hall: 15 assists.