STEUBENVILLE—The Finnegan Fieldhouse was the site of Franciscan University volleyball's third annual breast cancer awareness and fundraiser event, nicknamed "Dig Pink." The event hosted raffles, free t-shirts, free food, an honoring of two local breast cancer survivors, as well as three volleyball matches. Franciscan opened up the event with a 3-0 (25-19, 25-9, 30-28) victory over La Roche College, and closed out the afternoon with a 3-0 (25-16, 28-26, 28-26) loss to Ursuline College.
The Lady Baron tri-match played hostess for the many other goings on at the Finnegan Fieldhouse Saturday, but far and above the most important was the raising of awareness for breast cancer. Honored at Dig Pink were two local breast cancer survivors: Susan Miller, director of the T.E.A.R Fund, and Marlene Nese, wife of John Nese, who played for the College of Steubenville's 1958 national champion basketball team.
Miller, a four-time breast cancer survivor and a strong advocate for breast cancer awareness, was brought to tears by the event.
"This event means the world to me; it's a passion of mine. There's a reason I'm still here, and obviously [this organization] is it."
She also mentioned that holding an event that college-aged students will come to is crucial to get that message out there. And Miller was impressed by the student turnout. "[The amount of students] is incredible. [It's important] to make young women and men aware of the issue. If we don't find a cure for this, they'll be the next generation coming into this [problem.]"
Last year brought over 150 attendants and approximately 1,000 dollars in donations to the T.E.A.R. Fund at the Tony Teramana Cancer Center, the same organization that this year's proceeds will benefit as well.
This year, the Lady Barons faced La Roche College for their first match of the morning, shutting out the Redhawks, 3-0.
"In the first match we controlled the ball pretty well," said Lady Baron head coach Kelly Herrmann. "La Roche doesn't give up. They play hard, and they certainly made that third game a good one. They're a good opponent."
Anna Cain recorded 15 kills to lead the way for the Lady Barons against La Roche, with Amy O'Keefe leading the assists column with 27 and Nicole Henson recording a team-high 15 digs.
In Franciscan's second match of the afternoon, played after a match between La Roche and Ursuline, the Ursuline Arrows showed no signs of fatigue playing back-to-back games as they took down the Lady Barons three games to none.
"We were just kind of off from the beginning [against Ursuline] because they just play great defense," said Herrmann.
The Arrows successfully returned many of the Lady Barons kill attempts—ones that were falling for points in favor of Franciscan in the game against La Roche.
"We had some uncharacteristic errors and we just couldn't get into a rhythm offensively," Herrmann added. "I thought we really battled in the second and third games, but you live and learn and you've got to move on."
The final two games in the match against Ursuline saw two Lady Baron comebacks with the score tying very late in both games. It wasn't enough, however, as Franciscan dropped both games two and three to Urusline by an identical narrow margin of 28-26.
Leading the way for the Lady Barons was another consistent performance from the freshman setter O'Keefe, as she tallied seven, eight, and nine assists in the three games and added 10 digs. Henson, Alyssa Wappes, and Maria Prezzia all also recorded double-digit digs in the first match with 19, 18, and 13, respectively. Meg Kay and Cain combined for 22 kills to round out the offensive highlights against Urusline.
The Lady Barons drop to 6-7 on the year and play another home match on Wednesday when they host Bethany College at 7 p.m.