STATESBORO, Ga. --- The Stetson volleyball team used the momentum from an easy game one to pull out a hard-fought 3-1 (30-20, 31-29, 24-30, 30-28) win over Georgia Southern Saturday morning at the GSU Invitational.

Stetson (1-1) completes its involvement in the tournament later this afternoon against North Florida. GSU (1-1) takes on Georgia tonight at 7:30 p.m.

“Stetson came in here and played a great match,” said GSU head coach Nicole McCray. “They were ready, they were definitely a different team from last night, they out-worked us for the most part, but how we respond will determine the true character of our team.”

Game one was all Stetson as they held the Eagles to a .100 hitting percentage and used a 15-1 run early on to lead by 13. Rebecca Orzechovicz had five kills during that run and Beth Slabaugh served 10 straight points.

A kill from freshman Sarah Gildersleeve (Naples, Fla.) gave Georgia Southern a 10-5 lead in game two but a 6-0 run by Stetson put the Hatters up one.

Neither team led by more than two points the rest of the game. GSU saved two game points to tie the score at 29-29, but an error and a kill by Karla Readshaw gave Stetson a 2-0 advantage.

Georgia Southern never trailed in game three but saw an early eight-point bulge drop to one, 24-23. Two kills from junior Bianca Julio (Curitiba, Brazil) and one from junior Christy Dowd (Indianapolis, Ind.) helped GSU cut the deficit in half.

Game four was a back-and-forth affair and after Stetson led 12-9, no more than a point separated the two teams until a collection of GSU errors late in the match pushed the Hatters to the win.

Orzechovicz totaled a team-high 16 kills to go along with 15 digs. Readshaw led the Hatters with 44 assists and 18 digs.

Four Eagles reached double-figure kills with Julio leading the way with 17. Junior Mae Chabra (Mt. Pleasant, S.C.) dished out 45 assists and senior Flavia Pereira (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) had a career-high 35 digs.