The University of Texas of the Permian Basin opened its 2013 season Friday afternoon, dropping a pair of matches to host #10 West Texas A&M 25-18, 25-17 and 25-16, and a five-set contest 12-25, 25-19, 25-14, 27-25, 10-15 to UC-Colorado Springs.

The Falcons held a 4-2 lead early on in their opening match of the season against the Lady Buffs, but a five-point run and a seven-point rally found the tournament hosts soon leading 17-7. UTPB closed to within six points at the end of the set with three straight while facing set point before dropping the first set by seven points.

UTPB held another early lead in set two at 3-2 before a six-point rally from West Texas A&M put it ahead for the remainder of the set. Both teams traded points throughout the rest of the second set as the Falcons never trailed by more than eight but could never get closer than four points.

Set three followed in much of the same fashion as the Lady Buffs gradually pulled away to a 12-7 lead behind a 6-2 run, and kept the Falcons from scoring more than two points in a row for the remainder of the final set of the match.

Keeley Brogdon led all UTPB players with eight kills while Hannah Rebb hit a team-best .250 with five kills in two sets. Ariel Fralick ended the contest with 14 assists, and Kelsey Zukowski had a team-high eight digs.

The Falcons rallied after dropping the first set against UC-Colorado Springs in their second match of the day, jumping out to a 10-point lead at 12-2 in the second. The Mountain Lions pulled to within four points in the second behind five straight poiints to get to 20-16, but a pair of attack errors with a kill by Terra Peil got the UTPB lead back to seven, and they close out the set with a 25-19 win.

UTPB came from behind again after dropping the third set and falling behind in the fourth. Facing match point trailing 24-21 in the fourth set, the Falcons evened the set at 24-24 on a kill by Melissa Lusk following a pair of UC-CS errors. They fought back after another chance at winning the match by Colorado Springs, taking the final three points of the set to take the match to a fifth and final set.

Colorado Springs proved to be too much in the fifth, taking an early 5-1 lead on five straight points. The Mountain Lions would hold on to the lead, taking the match with a 15-10 fifth set win.

Brogdon and Lusk each tallied 10 kills in the five-set match to lead the Falcons attack. Freshman Jordan McDonald recorded a match-high 26 digs and Ariel Fralick scored a team-best 25 assists.

The Falcons are back in action in Canyon Saturday morning, facing Western State Colorado at 9 a.m. before closing out the weekend at 3:30 p.m. against Incarnate Word.