The Falcons finished their west coast trip at the Comcast Invitational hosted by the University of New Mexico with a sweep over Northern Colorado (30-20, 30-23, 30-28). The win improved the Falcons’ record to 1-2 and gave them a third place finish in the tournament.

The Falcons began the tournament Friday with a pair of losses to Gonzaga 3-2 and the host New Mexico 3-0.

BG’s first game on Friday against the Gonzaga Bulldogs was somewhat of a disappointment as they held a 2-0 lead after two games. In the third game however the Bulldogs began a run of three straight games in which they out scored the Falcons 75-46.

“In our match against Gonzaga, when our passing went bad we never really recovered,” said BG coach Denise Van De Walle. “When your passing and hitting go bad, everything seems to snowball.”

In the match, the Falcons were led by Corey Domek with a team high 21 kills and a .385 hitting percentage. The match was the Falcons’ second five-game match this season, dropping their record to 1-1 in such contests.

In their second match on Friday, the Falcons fell to the host Lobos in three straight sets. BG held a lead late in all three games but failed to finish off the host.

Domek once again led the Falcons with 13 kills and Junior Chelsey Meek led the defense with 15 digs.

The Falcons came into their final tournament game against fellow two-loss team the Northern Colorado Bears. The game would turn out to be a battle for third place in the Lobos invitational as both Gonzaga and New Mexico already clinched the top two spots.

In game one the Falcons trailed the Bears 6-5 early but a 4-0 run pushed the score to 9-6 giving BG the lead that they would hold for the rest of the game.

The Falcons won game one handily, 30-20. During the game BG was able to hold the Bears to a .080 hitting percentage compared to their .290.

“We really didn’t make much adjustments we went back and just played so much better. We attacked the ball so much better, it was our best passing game of the entire season. We controlled the tempo the entire match,” said Van De Walle.

Game two was much more closely contested. Late in the game the Bears led BG 20-19. But with Maggie Karges serving, the Falcons went on a nine-point run, taking control of the game 28-20. In total the Falcons scored 11 of the last 15 points ending the game on a kill by Domek, winning 30-23.

Game three also proved to be a closely contested match as the teams were tied late at 25 points a piece. The Falcons were able to push for a 3-point lead late, only to see Northern Colorado come back to tie.

With the score at 29-28 the Falcons were able to seal the match with a kill from Domek assisted by freshman Sam Fish.

For the match the Falcons were led by Stephanie Swiger with 16 kills on 29 attempts for a .483 hitting percentage.

Both Swiger and Domek were named to the all-tournament team as Domek recorded 46 kills, leading the team for the weekend. Swiger had 32 kills to go along with 15 blocks.

“I was very excited. That was just a really great ending to the weekend. Here we ended with a 1-2 record and we got two players on the all-tournament team,” said Van De Walle.

The win moved the Falcons to 5-5 on the year with their next match Friday against Depaul at 7 p.m. in the Best Western Invitational taking place in Anderson Arena next weekend.