CHICAGO, Ill. – The St. Olaf College volleyball team dropped a three-set match to seventh-ranked Hope College to start its season, falling by a 25-17, 25-19, 25-21 margin to open the Gargoyle Classic on Friday afternoon at Ratner Center.

Hope (1-0) hit .302 as a team on its way to the season-opening sweep and was led by McKenna Otto's match-high 12 kills, five digs, and three blocks. Sophomore Catherine Moore paced St. Olaf (0-1) with nine kills, while senior Katelyn Lannom added eight kills and three blocks while hitting .368.

The match against the No. 7 team in the country marked the start of a stretch that sees the Oles play teams that are either ranked or received votes in the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) Preseason Top 25 seven times in their first nine matches. It was also the second-ever meeting between the two programs whose first meeting was a five-set win for St. Olaf on Oct. 14, 1994 in Rochester, N.Y.

The Flying Dutch committed just two attack errors and hit .370 en route to claiming the opening set, 25-17. Neither team led by more than three until Hope won five-straight points to open up a 20-13 advantage. Moore led St. Olaf with four kills in the opening set, but 11 attack errors helped send the set to the Flying Dutch.

In the second set, Hope used a 6-0 run midway through to take a 16-8 lead and led by as many as 10 before a late St. Olaf rally. Trailing 21-11, the Oles went on a run behind the serve of junior Selena Rodriguez, winning six consecutive points to get within four, but the Flying Dutch recovered to close out the set, 25-19.

The largest lead for either team in the third set was two points until St. Olaf won five points in a row after trailing 16-15 to go ahead by four. Sophomore Kylie Reardon contributed a pair of aces during the run. The Oles led 21-17 after a Hope service error but that was the last point St. Olaf would win, as the Flying Dutch won the final eight points of the match to finish off the three-set win.

Lannom had five of her eight kills in the third set for St. Olaf, which hit .098 for the match. Senior Brynne Gray had a team-high 15 assists and six digs, while Rodriguez and junior Christina Cheng had nine digs apiece. Rodriguez and Reardon had three aces apiece to combine for the Oles' six aces in the match.

St. Olaf, which received votes in the AVCA preseaso poll, closes out the tournament with a pair of matches on Saturday, Sept. 4. The Oles start the day by taking on Aurora University at 10 a.m. before facing the ninth-ranked University of Chicago at 3 p.m.