BOXSCORE: NC-Montana

MISSOULA, Mont. -- Northern Colorado's women's volleyball team got off to a historic start this year, but the Bears knew the 2008 season wouldn't be all sunshine and roses.

That was never truer than Friday night, Sept. 19, inside Montana's West Auxiliary Gym, where Northern Colorado couldn't build on a first-set victory and fell 3-1 (25-21, 23-25, 23-25, 20-25) to the Grizzlies.

And the Bears (6-2, 0-1 in the Big Sky) won't get much time to lick their wounds. A date Saturday night, Sept. 20, in Bozeman against Montana State awaits.

"Montana's a tough matchup for us, and we just didn't perform well," Northern Colorado coach Lyndsey Benson said. "But we know it's tough to go on the road and win in the Big Sky Conference.

"We've just got to be ready to go tomorrow night at Montana State."

Junior Kenzie Shreeve stands out out the most from the Northern Colorado boxscore -- she smashed 16 kills and had nine digs -- but junior Allison Raguse and sophomore Ashley Lichtenberg kept the Bears in the match when it appeared the tough road crowd at Montana (5-6, 1-0) was going to be too much for them to overcome.

Lichtenberg had 14 kills, but only three errors. Raguse had only seven kills, but she did it on nine attempts for a scorching .667 hitting percentage.

"Ashley had a great match for us, offensively," Benson said, "we just didn't get ourselves in a position to get her the ball enough.

"We've just got to keep getting better."