Mallory Pinske and Lualis Alvarado combined for 28 kills, but Slippery Rock won close third and fourth sets to hand the Pitt-Johnstown volleyball team narrow, four-set PSAC West loss, Friday night in Slippery Rock.  The Mountain Cats are now 8-17 overall and 1-10 in conference-play.
 
After dropping the first set, 25-12, Pitt-Johnstown responded with a 25-16 win.  However, the Rock went on to wrap-up the match with 26-24 and 25-23 victories.
 
Slippery Rock started fast and used one of Callie Chevalier's six first set kills to open up a 7-0 lead.  Pitt-Johnstown got kills from Natalie Lippincott, Pinske, and Reagan Morris, and a pair of Rock errors to narrow the gap to 13-9, but Slippery Rock regained control and outscored the Mountain Cats, 12-3, the rest of the way to take the set, 25-12.
 
In a much tighter second set, Pitt-Johnstown erased an early three-point deficit with six unanswered points, including another kill from Lippincott, to go on top, 13-10.  The Mountain Cats never trailed again and pushed it out to 17-12 on an Adiamar Beaz service ace, before evening the match at one set apiece with a 25-16 win on Pinske's block.
 
Pitt-Johnstown got off to a good start in the third set and built a 10-5 lead on a Gabi DeRenzo ace and Abi Leitner's kill.  The Rock kept it close and eventually knotted it at 20, before scoring the final two points to take the set, 26-24 on kills from Paige Weeder and Stephanie O'Donnell.
 
Slippery Rock held the momentum in the fourth set and built a 13-8 advantage on an Erica Selfridge kill.  The Mountain Cats battled all the way back to make it 24-23 on two straight kills from Pinske and another DeRenzo ace, but Chevalier's 19^th kills of the night gave The Rock a narrow 25-23 win and closed out the match.
 
Pinske collected a team-high 15 kills and three blocks and Alvarado added 13 kills and a dozen digs to lead the Mountain Cats.  Pitt-Johnstown also got six kills from Lippincott and five kills and seven digs from Abi Leitner.
 
Pitt-Johnstown also got a match-high 35 assists, 18 digs, and two aces from Beaz, and a team-high 31 digs and two aces from DeRenzo.
 
Slippery Rock, which improved to 10-14 overall and 5-6 in the PSAC West, was led by Chevalier's match-high 19 kills and Selfridge's 14 kills and 20 digs.
 
The Mountain Cats travel to a PSAC West match at Seton Hill on Saturday before returning home to host a conference match against Clarion on Tuesday at 6 p.m. in the Sports Center.