Oct. 14, 2006

Fargo, North Dakota - Junior Ashley Brown had a career high 17 kills but Utah Valley State (11-10) still fell to North Dakota State (13-9) in four games (30-23, 26-30, 32-30, 30-23) in front of 1,069 NDSU fans on Saturday night.

Jessica Endres had another solid night, hitting .464 with 14 kills. Endres leads the Wolverines on the season with a .339 hitting percentage.

It's the fourth straight loss for Utah Valley and the second in two nights to fellow Division-I Independents after Friday's loss to South Dakota State.

"Yesterday was disappointing as far as our effort was concerned. Today we were better in some areas," said UV head coach Sam Atoa. "North Dakota State just played a better match than we did. That's the way it goes sometimes. But it was nice to see the consistency from Jessica Endres...and Ashley Brown had a nice match."

After dropping game one 30-23, the Wolverines evened up the match in game two with Brown and Camie Manwill totaling four kills each in the game.

In pivotal game three, Utah Valley State built a 15-10 lead following an Ashley Dallin kill but couldn't put the Bison away.

North Dakota State got within one point at 25-24 and then got some help thanks to two straight Wolverines errors to take its first lead since 5-4.

A Sheila Parrish kill gave the Bison a 29-27 lead, but an attack error and a kill from Manwill knotted it up at 29.

Then after a 30-30 tie, Parrish finished the game off with two consecutive kills, giving the Bison the win in the swing game and the momentum to close out the match in four.

In the fourth game, Utah Valley fell behind 19-8 before attempting to claw its way back into it. The Wolverines eventually got within four points at 25-21 but that's as close as they would come.

"We dug ourselves too big of a hole in the fourth game," said Atoa. "I'm proud of the way we battled in that game but we have to be tougher when we get in certain situations."

Utah Valley State will get next week off before hosting South Dakota State on October 26th and the same North Dakota State squad on October 28th.