RELATED CLICKS:
Box score | season stats

IOWA CITY, Iowa -- The intermission was the Bears' biggest enemy Friday during their first match of the 2009 Iowa Hawkeye Challenge.

Northern Colorado went into the break against Drake on Friday afternoon with a commanding 2-0 advantage after getting 25-20 and 25-15 victories in the first two games.

Then intermission hit and seemingly zapped all the wind from the Bears' sails.

Drake shot out to an 8-1 lead early on in game three and rode that wave to a 25-22 victory and 25-20 and 16-14 victories in games four and five to hand Northern Colorado a 3-2 defeat.

It was definitely a frustrating start to the Challenge for the Bears (5-4), and the tournament road won't get any easier for Northern Colorado, who's set to face the host Hawkeyes on Saturday morning before taking on the 11th-ranked team in the country in Iowa State.

It wasn't all bad for the Bears in the defeat, though.

Junior Ashley Lichtenberg, for example, who hails from nearby Bettendorf, Iowa, and came into the weekend event leading the Big Sky Conference with a .431 hitting percentage, slammed down 14 kills with just two errors Friday.

Lichtenberg also had five digs, three blocks and a service ace.

Senior Allison Raguse led Northern Colorado with 16 kills against Drake (7-2), but she also accounted for 10 of the Bears' 26 errors in the match.

Sophomore Amanda Arterburn led Northern Colorado's defensive charge with 13 digs, while senior Breanna VanDerMost (12), Raguse (12) and freshman Marissa Hughes (11) also finished with double-digit defensive plays.

NOTES: Drake's 14 blocks and 74 digs in the match Friday were the most in either category of any of Northern Colorado's opponents this season ... The Bears are now 0-1 all-time against the Bulldogs ... Lichtenberg's hometown of Bettendorf is about 60 miles east of Iowa City.