BELOIT, Wis. -- The Alverno College women's volleyball team closed out a difficult weekend of matches at the Beloit College Buc Blast Tournament with a pair of 3-0 non-conference losses to Coe College and Northland College on Saturday afternoon.

The Inferno (0-12 overall) put forth an improved showing in their first set against Coe with a 25-16 loss as a result, but were unable to maintain that effort in the second two sets, posting scores of 25-9 and 25-8 to concede the match.

In its final match of the tournament, the squad was unable to rally against the Northland Lumberjills, falling 25-15, 25-4 and 25-12.  

"We couldn't pull it together mentally today," said Alverno head coach Crystal McClure. "We defeated ourselves in this tournament. We need to learn how to better implement our strategy in order to be successful."

Despite the frustrations of the weekend, McClure was pleased with the play of junior setter Kim Reuter (Franklin, Wis.) and sophomore defensive specialist Jackie Werner (Milwaukee, Wis./Ronald Reagan) and is starting to see improvement in her team's blocking ability.

"Kim had some great sets, we just couldn't get our hitters to connect, and Jackie played well all around," McClure said. "We did do a better job of getting some blocks up at the net, we just need to be more consistent and correct some of the other errors we've been making."

Sophomore outside hitter Ashley Graham (Cudahy, Wis.) and freshman middle blocker Rachel Diedrich (Two Rivers, Wis.) led the Inferno on offense for the day, as Graham scored four kills against Northland while Diedrich had four against Coe. Sophomore libero Kia Yang (Milwaukee, Wis./Riverside) topped the defensive column in both matches with 12 digs against Coe and seven against Northland.

Alverno will resume Northern Athletics Conference play this coming week, returning to its home court to face Concordia University Chicago on Wednesday, Sept. 23.

"They're going to be a tough match," McClure said. "We're going to have to play hard and come back strong from this tournament and learn from our mistakes."

Match time with Concordia is set for 7 p.m. in Alverno's Reiman Gymnasium.