WINONA LAKE – After a pristine start to the season, the Grace College volleyball team tasted its first loss of 2013 to Crossroads League rival Taylor on Wednesday.

The Lady Lancers (8-1; 0-1 CL) were silenced offensively as the Trojans won the match in three sets.

After a slow start in the first game, Grace battled its way back into contention. But 11 errors in the opening set were too much to overcome as the Trojans (4-5; 1-0 CL) won 25-21. Grace struggled to a negative team hitting percentage of -.152.

The second set saw many of the same problems as Taylor claimed a 25-20 win.

Grace’s best offensive set of the match in the third also happened to be Taylor’s best as the Trojans closed out the match. The Lady Lancers had 10 team kills on seven errors, but their effort could not match the Trojan’s .250 team hitting percentage as Taylor won 25-19.

The loss snaps Grace’s 8-0 start to the 2013 campaign, which was the program’s best start since 1995.

“This was a tough first home game for us tonight against one of the top teams in our league,” said Grace head coach Andria Harshman. “We didn’t execute our game plan like we practiced unfortunately, and Taylor was within their system. We’ll come back in practice ready to respond to this loss.”

Calah Kruse led Grace’s attack with seven kills to go along with 10 digs, and Jessica Scherb tallied 12 digs.

Ellie Harp ended with 21 assists, 7 digs, 3 kills, 1 solo block and 2 block assists, and Dana Johnston led all players with four block assists.

The Lady Lancers will look to rebound on Friday when they host Spring Arbor at 7 p.m.