From the opening set, SF State faced a large deficit and wasn’t able to find an answer in an uphill battle against Simon Fraser University.

The Gators struggled mightily as a team, dropping three straight sets and losing two out of the three by double digits. Whenever they seemed to make a run, Simon Fraser was able to make quick adjustments to prevent any further damage.

According to head coach Matt Hoffman, lack of competitiveness and leadership proved costly in the loss.

“We didn’t have a lot of fight tonight. We are young and we don’t know how to compete yet,” Hoffman said. “We don’t have that pit-bull out there, we have a lot of nice happy people but we don’t have the fighters and we need to get that.”

In the first set, the Gators faced a quick three to 11 disadvantage and were forced to called a quick timeout. After the timeout, they were able to make a short run to closed the gap to five but Simon Fraser orchestrated a run of their own to close the set 25-14.

Although the Gators performed better in the second set, 18-25, they battled behind throughout and couldn’t create any momentum going into the third set in which they loss convincingly 11-25.

Outside hitter, Christine Johnson who finished the game with a team-high eight kills also believed that lack of competitiveness hurt the team today.

“We have to be more competitive and be better at attacking them on passing,” Johnson said.

Setter Linda Aerne added that they are looking forward to bounce back in their next game.

“We’re definitely going to step our game up and think about how we are going to fight more,” Aerne said.

The defeat drops the Gators to a 1-4 record but they have a chance to reach one game below .500 with two wins in the same day on Friday at The Swamp. They host Chaminade University at 12:30 p.m. and Fresno Pacific University at 8 p.m.