Sacramento State volleyball lost to Eastern Washington University 3-1 on the road on Thursday night.

The Hornets move to 16-4 overall and 3-2 in Big Sky Conference play this season.

Before the match, Eastern Washington had won six straight and remained a perfect 5-0 in conference play.

“They’re a good team,” said Sac State head coach Ruben Volta. “They have nice size, they pass really well and they play really good defense.”

The Hornets fell into third place in the Big Sky South Division with the loss behind second place Northern Arizona University (14-4, 4-1) and first place Idaho State University (13-6, 5-0).

Offensively, the Hornets were not as sharp as in their previous matches. They ended the evening with a hitting percentage of .169 with only the setter, Kennedy Kurtz (1.000), and outside hitter, Sloan Lovett (.206), hitting over .200 on the team.

Errors were a problem for the Hornets ending the night with 20 attack errors, but Eastern Washington had 16 attack errors of their own.

The Hornets had nine service aces on the night with Kurtz leading the team with three. The points the Hornets got from their aces were negated by the ones they gave away in errors with 15 service errors on the evening.

The first set was hard fought by both teams with seven ties and four lead changes that had Eastern Washington winning the set 25-21. Hornets’ outside hitters Morgan Stanley and Madeline Cannon both had four kills in the set. The team struggled offensively overall with a hitting percentage of .160. They also had five attack errors and four serve errors.

Eastern Washington did not slow down going into the second set. They took an early 5-0 lead and never looked back keeping the lead the entire set to win it 25-16. Eastern Washington was hitting the ball well with a .414 hit percentage. The Hornets continued to struggle offensively with a .030 hit percentage and seven errors. Lauren Kissell had the most kills in the set with four.

Sac State came alive in the third set winning 25-14. They hit .381 on the set and had two service aces from Stanley. They finished the set with only three errors.

“That was a game we actually served better,” said Volta. “We were passing the ball well and overall we just played better.”

The Hornets carried some of that momentum into the fourth set getting out to a 4-2 lead. It was a match with five lead changes and six tie scores. In the end, Sac state lost by a score of 19-25.

The Hornets are 1-2 on their road trip which ends this Saturday at 7 p.m. against the University of Idaho. Idaho is 5-12 overall and 1-4 in the Big Sky North Division.