Upper Iowa volleyball faced Minnesota State in their first contest of the season, falling to the hosts 3-0 with scores of 25-21, 25-18 and 25-15. The Peacocks are back in action tomorrow against UW Parkside at 10 a.m., followed by a match with Minnesota State Moorhead at 2 p.m.
 
Game one was a back-and-forth battle in the early part of the match, but MSU put together two kills and capitalized on two UIU errors to jump out to a 12-8 advantage. The Peacocks retaliated and crawled within two points (15-13), but slowed their strike as they trailed 22-15 towards the end of the match. Once again, the blue and white fought back, but it was not enough to overtake the lead. 
 
Upper Iowa clawed from behind again in set two as the Mavericks maintained a comfortable distance early on. MSU had their best statistical match on offense, recording 16 kills behind a .394 hitting percentage. 
 
The Peacocks put together their largest run mid-match as they rallied off four straight points to only trail the Mavericks 19-16, with momentous kills from Nicole Pozorski and Maria Winter. MSU finished off on a 6-2 run, and carried their momentum into the third and final set of the evening. 
 
Piggybacking off the last set, Minnesota State cruised through the last segment. They jumped out to a 6-1 lead and remained in control for the entirety of the set. 

"We didn't play bad this evening, we got beat basically by one run in each set where we couldn't break Mankato's serve," said Head Coach Jim Dietz. "It's something we'll be able to work on over the course of the season.  It was good to finally play someone and learn what we do well, too.  I thought we did a good job with our serve-receive in only being aced three times—solid job by McKenna Diermeier, and I thought Zoe was dominating in the middle.  Now we get a crack at a couple more schools tomorrow."​​
 
Pozorski paced the team in assists with 25, while Zoe Semelroth led in kills with 13 and recorded a game-high .611 hitting percentage. McKenna Diermeier led the way in digs with 13, followed by Lydia Imborgno with nine.