After an eight-game road trip, the Hornets returned to the Nest for the 4th Annual Sacramento State Volleyball Invitational. Sacramento competed in two tournaments, one in Texas, where they went 3-1, another in Arkansas, where they went 2-1, and played against the Nevada Wolf Pack, where they won 3-1.

For the last two years, the Hornets have won the invite, but this year the University of San Francisco Dons took the tournament as the Hornets finished second at 3-1.

“To lose to San Francisco is hard,” Coach Debby Colberg said. “We are trying to get ranked and we let the opportunity get by. That hurts me more than a trophy at the end.”

The Hornets opened the invite with a 3-2 loss to the Dons on Friday, which gave the team more competition than they were used to.

“We really haven’t had tough teams (in the invite before),” Atlee Hubbard said. “San Francisco is a good team this year.”

“It’s frustrating,” Kristin Lutes said about the loss to the Dons. “It was a good match.”

San Francisco was leading two games to one and leading Sacramento 28-25 in game four, but with Don errors and crucial kills from Hubbard and Shannon Roland, the Hornets made a 43-32 comeback.

San Francisco beat UC Riverside 3-0, which gave them the advantage going into the Sacramento match. The Dons easily put the Hornets into a hole.

“We needed to get out of a hole,” Colberg said. “But we couldn’t recover.”

After the loss to the Dons, the Hornets came back to sweep Western Kentucky, the defending Sun Belt Conference champions. On Saturday, Sacramento beat UC Riverside in four and swept Syracuse.

The Lady Toppers, from Western Kentucky, recorded more digs (77-72), assists (49-45) and blocks (9-8.5) than the Hornets, but both teams tied with 51 kills apiece. Sacramento went ahead with five aces and six errors, as Western Kentucky only recorded two aces, made 11 errors and were called on three ball-handling errors.

The Hornets covered a lot of ground during the game with the Highlanders, earning their big lead during game four with 14 points. UC Riverside led nearly all of game two, but never had more than a four-point lead.

Lindsay Haupt led Sacramento over Syracuse with 11 kills, 10 blocks and a .579 hitting percentage for her third career double-double.

The Hornets saw more competitive teams on Friday than Saturday and grew more as a team during each match, Colberg said.

“The two games Friday were good and Saturday was a bit easy,” Colberg said. Colberg was given the chance to play some Hornets that don’t usually see the court.

No team is perfect and that’s how Colberg sees her team.

“There’s always things we have to work on,” she said. “I thought the setting got better. They had to gain experience on the fly and the right side attack grew a little more this weekend.”

Hubbard led Sacramento with 50 kills and four aces during the invite while Lindsay Haupt had 43 kills and Michelle Franz made 37. Lutes made 91 digs and Rose Burke led with 125 assists.

Franz and Lutes made the All-Tournament team.

“Kristin and Michelle were consistent the whole time and were well-deserving,” Colberg said.

On Monday, the Big Sky announced Michelle Franz as the third Hornet volleyball player in as many weeks to be named Player of the Week.

The team will open its Big Sky schedule at 7 p.m. on Friday against the Northern Arizona Lumberjacks at the Hornets Nest.

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Karyn Gilbert can be reached at [email protected]