ATHENS, Ga.—McNeese volleyball dropped a thrilling five-set match (17-25, 33-31, 25-23, 15-25, 13-15) to South Alabama despite some outstanding offensive performances here Friday on the first day of the Georgia Bulldog Invitational.
 
Junior Jenny D'Alessandro, sophomore Alexandra Aguilera, freshmen Keegan Nelms and Kaitlyn Elliot all recorded career high's while junior Adison Giambrone tied a career high.
 
"Our team keeps taking so many steps forward," said head coach Ashleigh Fitzgerald. "It's a bummer we couldn't pull it out today despite some really great offensive performances. We continue to compete incredibly hard and we are pretty close to things going our way."
 
D'Alessandro put down a career and match high 22 kills along with a scorching .571 attack percent. The native of Port Charlotte, Florida was nearly perfect in the match, committing only two hitting errors in 35 attempts.
 
Aguilera dished out a career high as well as a match high 65 assists and picked up 10 digs. Nelms was credited with 19 kills, a career high for her along with a .277 hitting percent. Elliott ended the match with a career high 15 kills and a .263 hitting percent and Giambrone tied her career high with 14 digs.
 
After dropping the first set, McNeese (3-10) took a 2-1 lead by winning set two by a 33-31 score. With the Cowgirls trailing 30-29, D'Alessandro tied the score with a kill. A kill by USA's Iva Durdanovic put the Jaguars up by one 31-30 then a USA error tied it again at 31. Elliot gave the Cowgirls the lead and D'Alessandro's kill gave McNeese the 33-31 victory to tie the match at one set apiece.
 
McNeese extended its lead to 2-1 with a 25-23 third set win. The set went back and forth the entire time before the Cowgirls pulled out the win on a Nelms kill.
 
The Cowgirls weren't able to close out the match in the fourth set with a 15-25 loss, sending the match to a deciding fifth set.
 
The set began with both teams trading points until USA outscored McNeese 5-2 to extend their lead to 12-9. McNeese made a run of its own to get within one point (13-12) on a D'Alessandro kill. USA scored the next point to make it 14-12 but another kill by D'Alessandro cut the lead to one point. Mechell Daniels kill gave the Jaguars the 15-13 fifth set win and the match.
 
McNeese will take on Georgia at 12 p.m. and Bethune-Cookman at 3 p.m. Saturday. The Georgia match can be seen on SECN+, WatchESPN and the ESPN app. Both matches can be followed through live stats. All links can be found on the volleyball schedule page on mcneesesports.com.