ROCK ISLAND, Ill. -- The Augustana Vikings women's volleyball team fell in a five-set match with the North Park Vikings on Wednesday.
 
The first set went their opponent's way as North Park broke an 8-8 tie and never looked back, scoring eight of the next ten points overall to take control at 16-10. Augie managed to crawl back within four points, but North Park used a late push to take the first set 25-18 for the early 1-0 in the match. Grace Vranicar had eight of her 24 digs in the opening frame.
 
Augie scored the first eight points of the second set to help jumpstart them to a quick lead, but North Park charged back to shrink the margin to three at 10-7. The home team withstood the comeback effort and answered with another run later on to push their advantage out again, seeing it as large as nine points on two different occasions. Augustana remained in front and tied the match up at 1-1 with a final set two score of 25-17. Ja'Nya Davis led a balanced attack for Augie in the game with four kills on a perfect hitting percentage.
 
In the third, Augie again jumped out to a quick lead, more than doubling up the visitors to begin the frame at 10-4. The road-team Vikings responded to the fast start for the second straight set, cutting the deficit to two at 11-9, but Augie countered with a 7-2 run to regain control. From there, the two teams played a back-and-forth game the rest of the set, but Augustana successfully held onto their already-built lead to win by a score of 25-15 to go up 2-1 in the match. Emily Schipper had a monster set with six kills, converting over 33 percent of her attempts.
 
It was a much more back-and-forth beginning to the fourth set, but North Park broke one of several ties to spring out to a 20-9 lead thanks to a 16-4 run. The visitors prevented any comeback threat from Augie on their way to a 25-11 set four win to force a fifth and deciding game.
 
The final set began with North Park grabbing six of the first eight points, fending off some high-powered Augie attacks for the early lead. Augustana responded with three straight to cut the deficit as they fought to catch up throughout the game. The two teams traded points until the visitors pushed their lead back out to four at 11-7. The lead held, resulting in a 15-8 set win and 3-2 match victory for North Park.
 
Schipper led the way for Augie, finishing with a team-high 12 kills.
 
With the loss, Augustana drops to 5-16 overall and 0-3 in CCIW play. The team will be back in action on Friday, October 8^th when they host Millikin. Start time is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. from the Carver Center.