Box Score 1 | Box Score 2 Atlanta, GA - The Piedmont College Lady Lions took a break from conference play Saturday but could not come up with a win dropping two 3-1 decisions to a pair of Southern Athletic Association foes. Both Oglethorpe University and Centre College took matches in four sets from PC who traveled to Atlanta for the non-conference tri-match hosted by the Stormy Petrels of Oglethorpe.

First up for PC was Centre College as the Colonels came down from Danville, Kentucky for the first meeting between the two programs since October of 2012.  In that last meeting, Centre came away with a 3-2 victory in Demorest, Georgia as the Lady Lions hosted in Cave Arena. 

Centre needed just four sets this time around taking a 25-21 win in the opening set before winning a tight second set 25-23. Piedmont would get a 25-18 win in the third to stave off straight set elimination, but the Colonels took another two-point decision in the fourth set 25-23 to claim the overall 3-1 match victory.

Veteran Mallory Leary was the leader offensively vs. the Colonels tallying 10 kills on 20 attempts with just one error to hit .450 in the match.  Leary's performance was her second best of the season with double digit attacks as she has tabbed double digit kills now three times on the season. 

Three players had double digit digs in the loss led by Katie Faith's 16 as the junior libero has had double digit digs in all but two matches this season for PC.  Faith is currently 5th in the league in digs per set with an average of 4.65.

After dropping the 3-1 decision to Centre, Piedmont faced a much improved Oglethorpe University team that has already doubled its entire win total from last season with ten victories so far in 2014.  Last season, Oglethorpe took Piedmont to the wire inside Cave Arena with the Lady Lions coming out with the victory in five sets while it took four sets for PC to pick up the win in Atlanta.  Piedmont has yet to play a five set match during the 2014 season.

Against OU, Piedmont took the opening set 25-20 but was blown away in the following set 25-9 by the hosting Stormy Petrels.  Sets three and four saw PC muster only a combined 30 points as the Lady Lions hit .000 as a team in the third set with OU winning 25-14 and 25-16 to wrap up the match in four.

Bright spots were there for PC in the match against OU as Leary continued to have the hot hand for the Lady Lions tallying seven kills in the match.  With her third kill in the match, Leary reached the century point in the kills column for PC in 2014, the second Lady Lion to do so after Kaitlin Norman passed that point just ten days ago in a win over Agnes Scott.

The Lady Lions now move to 10-6 overall and will resume USA South conference play heading to Maryville, TN on Wednesday for a single match against Maryville College, the preseason favorite in the league. Wednesday's match is a divisional match and will begin at 6:30 p.m.