As game time approached for Eastern University Volleyball's much anticipated contest with second ranked Juniata College, all the seats in the Eastern gym quickly disappeared. The overflow crowd came to see their Eastern Eagles upset the powerhouse namesakes from Juniata. Though Eastern jumped to a 21-14 lead in the opening set, Juniata showed their experience in battling back to win the showdown in three close sets.

The opening set turned out to be the story of the match as the host Eagles stretched a 9-7 edge to a 21-14 lead behind tough serving and a balanced attack. Maria Horning served five straight points in the run and forced a Juniata timeout.

The 2009 National Runner-Up Juniata squad showed their quality out of the time out as they earned a side out and put together a serving run of their own. If there was a key moment in the match, it came with the Eastern Eagles clinging to a 23-21 lead. Horning seemed to catch the Juniata defense off balance with a quick set to Rachel Wenger who dropped a hard tip middle that look to be headed for the floor. Juniata Libero Libby Morrison, however, had other ideas. The junior transfer executed a beautiful pancake dig and Juniata cut the deficit to 23-22 on a Drew Barnhart kill.

"That made a huge difference." Eastern Head Coach Mark Birtwistle stated, "that goes down and we are up 24-21, and we escape a rotation that was difficult for us." Juniata won the last three points to take the opening set and take a good bit of steam out of the hosts and the crowd.In the second set, the two teams traded points to 13-13 before Juniata pulled away to a 25-18 victory. "They were better than us on first swing side-outs," Birtwistle said, "when the ball went back and forth, we played with them, but they were able to shorten more points than we could." Juniata's effective serve receive made even a small lead feel nearly insurmountable. Birtwistle commented on how difficult it is to score points on the serve against Juniata.

The visitors jumped to an early lead in the third set before Horning brought the Eastern crowd back to life with inspired play at the net. The home squad cut what had been a five point deficit to one at 23-22, but the a Steph Straus dump caught the Eastern defense off balance to push the lead back to 24-22 before a Morrison ace ended the match.

The sixth ranked Eastern Eagles  will return to action at FDU-Florham next week. Eastern and Juniata will meet again at least one more time this year when Eastern travels to Juniata on October 23rd.

Box Score