ASKEWVILLE – First-year Bethel Assembly Christian Academy coach Stacie Dunlow wasn’t exactly pleased.

She wasn’t exactly disappointed either.

The Lady Eagles, under Dunlow’s direction, battled hard Friday, but came up short in thee sets against defending state champion Gramercy Christian School.

In all three sets, the Lady Eagles fell behind and couldn’t rally to get back into the match.

In the first game, Gramercy raced to a 13-4 advantage and never looked back.

Despite a pair of defensive stops by Betsy Farmer, Bethel could only get within 16-8.

After Gramercy pushed the advantage to 19-9, Kayla Overton served the Lady Eagles back within six. She scored four points off her serve to get Bethel to 19-13.

Gramercy went on to win the set 25-15.

The Lady Eagles trailed 16-3 when a defensive stop set up the serve of Pamela Harden. She used a kill by senior Lorie Beth Copeland to help get Bethel to within 16-5.

That was all the Lady Eagles could muster, however, as they fell by a final count of 25-11.

Farmer’s serve gave Bethel their first lead of the match in set three, but Gramercy came right back and took an 11-2 advantage.

Solid volleys by Farmer and Copeland helped the Lady Eagles stop the run and Copeland added a point off her serve to get Bethel within 13-5.

Eventually Gramercy grabbed a 24-9 lead, but that’s when Bethel made their best showing of the match.

From there, they scored 10 consecutive points to get back into the match.

Overton was the key to the run as she served nine straight points.

It wasn’t enough however as a defensive stop finally won the match for Gramercy.

&uot;Considering they are the defending state champions, I thought we did alright,&uot; Dunlow said. &uot;I think we did a pretty good job of holding our own against their first unit.&uot;

The loss was the second in two days for Bethel as they suffered a heart-breaking defeat at Wanchese on Thursday.

After falling behind two sets, the Lady Eagles tied the match and sent it to a fifth set. They dropped that set 15-12. The scores for the first four were 30-28, 25-20, 13-25 and 22-25.

The Lady Eagles will travel to Emmanuel Christian School today before participating in a tournament at Elizabeth City next weekend.