INDIANAPOLIS — The Goshen College volleyball team took a loss in its first Crossroads League match of the season Wednesday night in a four-set defeat at the hands of Marian University.

The teams split the first two sets, with Marian winning the first 29-27 and Goshen the second 25-20, before the Knights jumped out to a 21-13 lead in the third. Goshen closed to within two points before the hosts rebounded to claim the last two stanzas 25-22 and 25-18.

Christy Swartzendruber led the Maple Leafs (3-4, 0-1 CL) with 13 kills. Whitney Peterson added nine and Darienne Maust seven. The visitors hit .378 with 19 winners in the opening set before falling off to .040 the rest of the way and posted seven blocks.

"We played really well for the first 80 percent of the match, but we need to work on the last 20 percent," said Goshen coach Jim Routhier. "We had some great runs to get back into games, but we stumbled and couldn't quite finish. Marian is a very strong defensive team that brought up everything we hit, but we put together some runs because of our control at the net."

Lisa Rodriguez paced GC with 23 assists, giving her 1415 for her two-plus-year career and pushing her past Jessica Buller into 10th place in school history. She needs 111 more to tie Brenda Ervin for ninth.

Swartzendruber racked up a team-high 21 digs and two aces for Goshen. Meghan Manley also added a pair of service winners. Lexa Magnuson and Sydney Cruz added three blocks each.

For the host Knights (3-2, 1-0), AlyxaKay Shields posted 12 kills and Anne Strevels five blocks. Marian hit .342 in the first set and .211 in each of the next two before both teams committed more attack errors than kills in the fourth stanza.

Following its season-opening seven-game road trip, Goshen plays the first of back-to-back home games Friday night at 7 p.m. in Gunden Gymnasium against Roosevelt University.