ROCHESTER, NY - On Friday night on day one of a four-team tournament at home, Nazareth fell in three sets (26-24, 25-17, 25-23) to nationally ranked Juniata. Owen Wickens led the Golden Flyers in four stat categories including kills, aces, blocks, and digs.

With the loss, Nazareth's overall record drops to 12-9 while Juniata improves to 20-2.

In the first set, Juniata jumped out to the first lead, opening the match with three consecutive points. Though the Golden Flyers cut the lead down to one a few time, Nazareth was not able to completely close that gap until the score was 18-13 in favor of the Eagles and Nazareth went on a 6-0 run to overtake Juniata at a score of 19-18. The two teams went back and forth scoring a few points at a time, but the Eagles were able to string together two consecutive points at a tie score of 24-24 to close out the set 26-24.

The second set started very close, but Juniata strung together a few runs mid-set to create a lead of 15-8. The deficit was too much for the Golden Flyers to recover from and Juniata took the set 25-17.

The final set was a battle all the way through with eight lead changes throughout. Late in the set, the Golden Flyers were up 22-21, but the Eagles strung together a run of three to put the pressure on Nazareth with match point at 24-22. Though the Golden Flyers were able to get one more point, they could not bridge the gap before Juniata took the win at 25-23.

Wickens led the team in kiils with 11, aces with one, blocks with four, and digs with eight. AJ Burda led the team in assists with 27. Andrew Bodensteiner added six kills while Josh Weaver totaled five. Ryan Murphy and Bodensteiner each tallied blocks with three and two respectively. Burda and Bodey Groff both had five digs.

The Golden Flyers will be back on the floor on March 8 to play Pen State Altoona at 1 p.m. and Baldwin Wallace at 5 p.m. for day two of the tournament.