Westminster dove head first into its conference schedule Wednesday.
The Blue Jays played its fellow reigning regular season SLIAC champion and the sole conference tournament champion last season Greenville, losing in straight sets (22-25, 20-25, 8-25).
The first two sets didn't have a team trail by more than five points at any given time before the third one was onesided in Greenville's favor.
Westminster took the first two points of the match and then a 6-1 Greenville run and a 4-1 Blue Jays run, to make it 7-7, set up the back-and-forth battle in the first set. Kills by Emma Geier and Haley Menke gave Westminster slim one-point leads before Greenville forced a timeout after taking a three-point lead at 17-14. The Panther held the slight advantage, outside of the Blue Jays tying it at 20 after a Menke kill and a Greenville error and then again at 22 after an Eryka Wanyonyi kill, until Greenville snagged the two-point set victory.
The second set saw Greenville take the early 2-0 lead, but Westminster tied it after a Claire Whitehouse kill and then again tied it at 4 after another Wanyonyi kill. A couple Panther aces compiled a 4-0 Greenville run to make it 8-4 and make it so the Panthers were in the driver's seat until the Blue Jays tied it at 18 after a Menke kill and Greenville error once again. Greenville took control of the wheel right after with another 4-0 run and won the set by five.
The Blue Jays didn't have much of an answer in the third set, registering only two kills from Whitehouse and Payton Bledsoe and giving up runs of 4-0, 6-0 and then 9-0 to end the match.
Menke led the Blue Jays in kills with 8, followed close behind by Wanyonyi, the SLIAC offensive player of the week, with 7. Erica Schraeder led Westminster in digs with 14, and Gretchen Durbala led with 23 assists.
Westminster will play its second weekend tournament - the River City Classic in Dubuque, Iowa - on Friday and Saturday, starting with 5 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Friday matches against Loras and Saint Mary's and ending with noon and 2 p.m. Saturday matches against St. Olaf and Grinnell.