Langhorne, PA - The Highlanders played a tightly contested match with the Hawks of Hunter College on Thursday night but ultimately fell 3-0. Cairn collected more kills than Hunter overall in the match; 41-36. The Highlanders were led by Randall Colson with 14 kills.
 
The two teams played evenly to start the match and played to a 10-10 tie in the first set. The Hawks then went on a 4-0 run on two kills and two attack errors by the Highlanders. That forced a Cairn timeout but the Highlanders came back with a 3-0 run to come within one.
 
Hunter then took advantage of a 6-1 run and jumped out to a 20-14 lead. Cairn couldn't come back from there and fell in the first set 25-20. The Hawks collected their highest number of kills in the first set with 15 and held Cairn to 10.
 
The Highlanders reversed those numbers through the next two sets with 15 and 16 kills in sets two and three. Behind Colson, Micah Godshall had a strong match attacking with 12 kills and five errors. Alex Lower collected 35 assists in the match as the setter.
 
Cairn had the lead 8-7 in the second set but wouldn't be ahead for the remainder of the set. However, the Highlanders went on a 4-0 run to tie up the set at 21-21 thanks to two kills by Colson and one by Godshall. The Highlanders could not complete the comeback though, and Hunter finished out the set with four of the next five points, 25-22.
 
Despite the high number of kills for the Highlanders, they could not get past the wall of blocking put up by the Hawks. Hunter collected 14 block assists compared to Cairn's four, forcing a larger number of attacking errors for the Highlanders.
 
The Highlanders had their best chance at winning a set in the third. Cairn again came back from a deficit and tied the match at 17-17. The Highlanders went down 22-19 and head coach Ben Fuller thought about taking a timeout but decided against it. The next point David Dager came in to serve and disrupted the Hawks' passing.
 
Dager's serving allowed Cairn to take the lead 23-22 but Hunter came back with two points and took the lead 24-23. The Highlanders would have been out of it here if not for a huge dig by Matthew Rhodes that eventually led to a block by Colson and Josiah Buss. With the game tied again at 24-24 Hunter won the next two points handing them the match with the 3-0 sweep.
 
With the loss, Cairn dropped to 2-4 overall, while Hunter improved to 3-4 with the win. The Highlanders will be back in action tomorrow when they host the first day of the Cairn Classic and play Southern Vermont at 6 p.m.High