BILLINGS, Mont. - The Saints' struggled to find their offensive rhythm on the road against GNAC opponent Montana State Billings in their three set loss (25-17, 25-18, 26-24) on Saturday.

The Saints (6-8, 1-5) jumped out to an early 5-2 lead over the Yellowjackets (6-9, 2-4) by capitalizing on attack errors and kills from Rebecca Mitchell and Kamille Langford. MSUB rallied to tie the score at 10-10 before going on a 5-1 run to establish a 15-11 lead. The Saints continued to chip away at the score with kills from Megan Vernoy, Emily Gooding and Nicolette Nesbitt; however, the Yellowjackets ended the set on a 6-1 run to secure the 25-17 victory.

MSUB took a 7-3 lead in the opening of the second set before a Rachel Gondrezick kill and service ace from Gooding helped shave the lead to 7-6. The Saints cut the score to within one point on five different times before taking a 13-12 lead on a setting error by MSUB. The Yellowjackets used a 6-1 run to regain the lead and closed the set with another 6-1 run to go up 2-0 in the match.

In the final set, both sides traded points until the 7-7 mark when the Yellowjackets scored four straight points to gain an advantage. The Saints responded by closing the gap to one point on kills from Vernoy and Gooding, also a service ace from Brooklynn Tacke. Montana State Billings answered back by once again extending the lead to four before a Saint Martin's timeout allowed the Saints to regroup and rally back to tie the match at 20-20 on a Ililani Kamaka kill. Each side swapped points until the scoreboard was tied at 23-23. The Yellowjackets claimed three of the final four points to lock up the 3-0 victory.

Give credit to MSUB, they ran a great offense tonight," said head coach Jon Killingbeck. "This is a league that you will not win if any skills take a night off. Tonight we did not excite our skills to our expected level and it showed on the scoreboard."

Gondrezick and Vernoy each managed a team-leading nine kills while Kamaka was second with eight kills, a new season-high. Nicolette Nesbitt led the Saints with 24 assists and Hananh Neumann recorded 10 digs throughout the match.

The Yellowjackets topped the Saints in points (53-40), Kills (44-37), Blocks (6-1), Assists (42-36) and Digs (52-39).

The Saints return to Marcus Pavilion for their match against Central Washington on Thursday, October 5 at 7:00 p.m. The match has been deemed Autism Awareness match and proceeds from the pregame tailgate will go to The Autism Society charity fund. Live stats and video will be available on smusaints.com.