La Crosse, WI - The Martin Luther College volleyball team dropped all three of its matches over the weekend at the La Crosse Invitational. Friday evening's match against Luther ended in a 3-0 defeat, while the Knights were beaten 3-0 to Augsburg and 3-1 to Lakeland in its Saturday doubleheader.

Luther 3, MLC 0

The Knights began its two day tournament in a hard fought match against Luther, with the Knights going down in three sets by a score of 25-22, 26-24, and 25-15. MLC had 30 kills in the three sets, with a hitting percentage of (.100). The Norse combated that with a hitting percentage of .239 to help lead them to the victory over the Knights.

Paige Biesterfeld and Lauren Paulsen led MLC with seven kills, while Ella Walz recorded a team-high 16 assists in the match.

Augsburg 3, MLC 0

In the second match of the day, the Knights were unable to have a successful go of it from a hitting perspective, as they had a hitting percentage of 0.23. Meanwhile, the Auggies benefited from their hitting percentage (.347) and rode that metric to their 3-0 sweep of the Knights.

After a tough 25-14 loss in the first set, the Knights would respond with a more competitive second set and even came within two points (23-21) after an Augsburg service error. However, the Auggies would secure the set 25-21 with consecutive kills from Madison Gully and Elizabeth Oster.

In the third set, the Knights had their most lopsided set of the season, going down 25-6. In the set, Augsburg converted 14 kills on 18 total attempts for an impressive 0.778 hitting percentage.

Walz led again in assists (11), while Paulsen and Anna Kieselhorst recorded seven digs for MLC.

Lakeland 3, MLC 1

In the third match, MLC went down 25-16 after one set played, but found a positive outcome in the second set with a 25-22 win. The Knights had 14 kills in the set and they would also benefit from some Lakeland errors.

The third set between the schools went down to the wire, with the Muskies coming out on top after the Knights came within one point (22-21). Lakeland finished the set off with back to back kills from Susana Stevens and then eventually took it off an attack error from Biesterfeld.

The Muskies would go on to win the fourth set and the match by a score of 25-17, as the Knights just simply ran out of gas in their comeback attempt.

Megan Kieselhorst had a team-high 13 kills. Naomi Bridgemen also had a solid game at the Libero position and had 19 digs in the four sets.

Kieselhorst was named to the All-Tournament team for MLC for the second time this season. The freshman was previously named to the All-Tournament team at UW-River Falls last weekend.

The Knights played without Grace Kieselhorst in the tournament, but hope to get the junior back sometime soon as they begin conference play on Tuesday, September 19, against Bethany. The match is scheduled for 7 p.m. in the LSC, where the Knights will honor the late Athletic Director, Jim Unke, with a court dedication in between sets two and three.