New York, N.Y. - Hunter College women's volleyball fell to New York University on Saturday afternoon in a highly competitive five-set match that featured scores of 25-19, 23-25, 21-25, 25-23 and 14-16.

The Hawks won the first set, dropped the next two but then took the fourth to send it into the fifth set, where they eventually fell by just two points. The Purple and Gold were led by Marlena Budna's best offensive performance during her Hunter career, dominating the match with 20 kills and just four errors for a .485 hitting percentage. She also added a match-high seven blocks to her stat line.

Hunter started strong by earning a solid first-set victory with a score of 25-19. The second set proved to be more of a challenge for the Hawks as they fell behind 15-8 before scoring eight-straight points off kills from Emily Wasson and Kylie Hurst, as well as two service aces from Sunghee Cho to move ahead. Leading 23-20 at the end of the set, Hunter began to struggle as NYU scored the last five points to take the lead and win the set, 25-23.

After dropping the third set by just four points the Purple and Gold responded with an early lead in the fourth. The Violets tied it up at 21, but this time the Hawks stayed in control, finding two kills from Budna to capture the 25-23 win.

Kills from Justine Smith, Isabelle Lawrence, Taylor Haiduk and Hurst allowed the Hawks to get the 10-9 edge in the fifth set, but the Violets were hard to shake off, tying the score and then pulling ahead 14-13. Budna gave the Hawks a kill to make it 14-all, but two straight kills from NYU made them hard to stop as they took the fifth 16-14 for the victory.

Budna led with a career-high of 20 kills in the loss, while Hurst also had a solid match, posting 12 kills and 12 digs. Miranda Hogan tallied 32 assists and Cho earned 19 digs, followed by 12 from Haiduk and 10 from Sofia Caradonna.

The Hawks return to the court on Tuesday, October 23 when they travel to Montclair State University for a 7 p.m. match.