Michigan State held off a valiant UWM comeback attempt in the first round of the NCAA Division I women's volleyball tournament, beating the Panthers 15-6, 15-4, 7-15, 19-17, Saturday night in Los Angeles.

After falling down two-games-to-none, the Panther comeback attempt appeared to have the Spartans on the ropes in game four, as Michigan State had to fight through four game points. UWM's final game point chance came up 17-16, but Michigan State earned a side out and scored the final three points of the match. The Panthers built leads of 10-6, 13-9, and 14-12 earlier in the game.

"Game four was a battle," coach Kathy Litzau said. "It wasn't anything negative that we did at the end to lose the game. It was just a number of positive things Michigan State did."

UWM struggled with the size of the Michigan State team throughout the evening. The Spartan defense, which fielded a front line of two players 6-foot-3 and one player 6-foot-4, recorded 18 blocks in the match. The Panthers hit .159 for the match.

"It was tough at first because we really hadn't played a team with that size all year long," junior Chrissy Schurla said. "It took us a while to get used to the block." Junior Laura Dallenbach led the Panther attack with 19 kills, while Schurla added 17.

Defense led the Panthers back into the match. UWM recorded its first three blocks of the match in winning game three, bolting to leads of 6-2 and 14-5. UWM hit .250 for the game, while limiting the Spartans to a .000 hitting percentage. Michigan State had hit .462 in the first two games.

"I told my team after the game that I was very proud of how they fought back and really pushed back after the break," Litzau said.

In games one and two, UWM fell down early and never recovered. The game-one deficit was 10-3 before the Panthers rattled off three straight points off Dallenbach's serves - including two aces - to close within 10-6. The Spartans then scored the final five points of the game. In game two, the Panthers dug themselves a 9-1 hole, and despite back-to-back points, could not overcome the big deficit.

"I don't think it was nerves so much," Dallenbach said. "We were just OK at the beginning of the match, not nearly as good as we could be. We were kind of dead on the court. We sparked a little bit after the break."

"Our goal coming into this match was to stay really fast," Litzau said. "We knew they had the size, so we needed to have our passing on, and we needed to keep attacking different parts of the court. I thought (setter) Lindsey Spoden did a good job of that as the match went along.

"We had to change our style of play somewhat as the match went along, and that's hard to do after playing one way for three months."

The Panthers return every player from this year's team, which won a fourth straight Midwestern Collegiate Conference title and earned a third straight NCAA Tournament berth. The players are already looking ahead to the excitement of next season.

"I think it's going to be exciting next year," Dallenbach said. "I think now the freshmen have confidence in what they can do. This next season is not one of getting to know each other, but rather one of pushing to get higher and get better."

"We were just talking today about how competitive we are about everything," Schurla said. "We get along very well, and we're all great friends, but we compete over everything. We always just want to make everyone better."