WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Catholic University volleyball team made the short trip to Gallaudet on Friday, splitting two matches in the Worthington Classic.

The Cardinals began by sweeping DeSales before dropping an extremely tight match to Salisbury in five sets.

Senior Brittany Connatser register 35 kills between the two matches while junior Sydney Sheppard totaled 55 assists.

Catholic 3, Desales 0 (25-20, 25-11, 25-22)

The Cardinals hit well and played clean volleyball to sweep the Bulldogs in the first match at the Worthington Classic, registering 35 kills and only making eight attack errors as a team.

Catholic hit .307 for the match and a staggering .450 in the second set to earn the victory. Connatser was the star for the Cardinals, registering 18 kills and nine digs, one dig off of a double-double. She also hit .516 over the three sets.

The Cardinals got off to a bit of a slow start, losing the first three points of the match. They trailed 8-7 in the first set until back-to-back kills from Erin Faughnan started a 6-0 Cardinal run. The Bulldogs did their best to battle back, pushing the score to 20-19, until Catholic won five of the final six points to take the set. 

Catholic asserted its dominance in the second, winning the first five points and never looking back. The Cardinals bettered that by putting together a 9-0 run to pull away, and did not commit a single error in the set.

The Cardinals hit .387 and registered 14 kills in the decisive third set. Junior Gaby Hernandez-Ferraiuoli had a team-high 15 digs in the match.

Salisbury 3, Catholic 2 (18-25, 25-21, 25-19, 20-25, 16-14)

Catholic gave the 10-1 Sea Gulls all they could handle in the second match of the day, pushing Salisbury about as far as possible without coming away with a victory.

The Cardinals showed they were there to fight, starting by taking the first four points of the match. Once Catholic pushed the lead to 15-9, Salisbury burned a timeout and immediately rang off three straight points to cut into the lead. The Sea Gulls would close the gap to 17-15, but Catholic held strong and Connatser smashed three consecutive kills to close out the first set. 

A stretch of five straight points for Salisbury in the middle of both the second and third sets were too much for the Cardinals to overcome, dropping both in tight fashion.

Now trailing 2-1, Catholic rallied to take the fourth set. This time Catholic took advantage of a key run, rattling off six straight points to turn an 11-10 deficit into a 16-11 lead. The Cardinals pushed the lead to 22-13 and after Salisbury did its best to push back, Catholic finished the set with an Olivia Blondin kill and a Hernandez-Ferraiuoli ace.

The fifth set was about as tight as it can get, with both teams exchanging the first eight points of the frame. After going down 6-4, consecutive kills by Grace Guerin, Faughnan and Halie Murphy gave the Cardinals their first advantage of the decisive set at 7-6.

The teams went back-and-forth, tying the set at, 10-10, 12-12 and 13-13. The Cardinals then took the lead on a Connetsar ace but dropped the next three points to fall, 16-14.

Blondin registered a double-double with 10 kills and 13 digs while Hernandez-Ferraiuoli pitched in with 27 digs and 10 assists. Sheppard claimed 19 digs and provided 29 assists while Kelsey Miller added 11 assists.

The Cardinals will return to the court for their final match at the Worthington Classic on Saturday at 10 a.m., when they face off against Marymount (Va.).