PLYMOUTH, Wis. -- The Alverno College women's volleyball team closed out a tough opening weekend of play at the Lakeland College Muskie Classic, dropping a pair of matches, 3-0, to UW-Superior and Ripon College on Saturday.

The Inferno (0-4 overall) had a tough time on offense yesterday, but were able to put up better efforts in their second two matches. In its first match of the day against UW-Superior, Alverno dropped a more competitive first set, 25-18, before falling 25-14 and 25-12 in the final two sets. The Inferno also played a closer set with Ripon in their second match, falling 25-17 in the second set and notching 25-14, 25-11 losses in the other two sets.

"Today was a lot better than yesterday," said Alverno head coach Crystal McClure. "Going into this tournament, we knew it was going to be tough, but our coaching staff agreed that this tournament was for the better and will help make us stronger. A lot of our players have come from small programs and still need technical skill development so this tournament was a real 'eye-opener' for them."

Freshman middle blocker Rachel Diedrich (Two Rivers, Wis.) and sophomore outside hitter Ashley Graham (Cudahy, Wis.) led the Inferno's offense in the UW-Superior match with four and three kills, respectively. Sophomore outside hitter Roxanne Kresmer (South Milwaukee, Wis.) anchored the back row with 10 digs.

Sophomore Kia Yang (Milwaukee, Wis./Riverside) led the defense against Ripon, posting 10 digs, while Graham and junior setter Kim Reuter (Franklin, Wis.) each added nine digs.

Alverno will now return to a more familiar venue with its home-opening triangular against Mount Mary College and Lawrence University for a pair of non-conference matches on Wednesday, Sept. 9.

"Overall, we acknowledged our strengths and weaknesses and will begin to prepare ourselves for Wednesday," McClure said. "We definitely need to work on our serve receive and shaking off mistakes. Lawrence will be a new team for us to face this year, so we are planning for the unexpected, but I know the team is very excited to play Mount Mary again. Last year we had a very exciting five set victory."

Match time with Mount Mary is set for 3 p.m. followed by the match with Lawrence at 7 p.m. in Alverno's Reiman Gymnasium.