The Lady Bisons cruised to a 25-14 win in the first, but turned around and dropped the second set 25-15.

To make things worse for Clearfield, senior Jennie Knepp got the Lady Bisons out to six- and five-point leads to open the third and fourth sets with a pair of service runs, only to see the Lady Elkers rally to win the sets and, ultimately, the match.

Ridgway won the last two sets 25-16 and 27-25.

"I told the girls that they shouldn't be happy with this loss," said Clearfield head coach Bob Peters. "They played well the first game, and then they fell apart. It wasn't just one person ... everybody didn't play very well.

"We beat them pretty handily, and then we started making some mistakes in the second game and it continued on. I don't know if they were looking ahead (to tonight's game with West Branch) or what. We need to play a lot better than we did the last three games."

Samantha Broad keyed the first-set run with her serving ability, while the Lady Elkers struggled to gain any points when they had serve.

Broad extended Clearfield's 2-1 lead to 6-1 before the Lady Bisons were whistled for being in the net for the first of many times on the night.

Despite the miscue, Broad kept the hot hand from behind the line, as she served up four more of her 11 service points to help put Ridgway away.

In the second set, it was the same exact story, only with the shoe being on the other foot.

Ridgway mustered just four service points in the opening-set loss, but bounced back with 15 in the second set to begin the momentum shift.

The Lady Bisons had trouble returning the serves as well, as the Lady Elkers registered five aces.

"We also had some faults in that set that put us even further behind," Peters said. "In the third game, I was probably the most disappointed. We started out with a 6-0 lead and we let them come back. That's something we can't let happen."

Knepp was responsible for the quick start, but more unforced errors popped up at the most inopportune times for Clearfield.

The Lady Bisons had nine unforced errors in the third set, and 25 in all.

Knepp fueled Clearfield again in the fourth set, but Ridgway battled back and eventually tied the game at 12.

"Every time she started serving, she'd get four, five or six in a row and they'd call a timeout to try to ice her a little bit," said Peters of Knepp. "She gets us started, but we let down after that."

As the set came down to the wire, Clearfield was unable to put the Lady Elkers away.

Monika Parks' service point had the Lady Bisons one point away from forcing a deciding fifth game, but another player-in-the-net call tied things up and Ridgway was able to close it out shortly thereafter.

Parks also had a strong night with seven service points and five kills, while Ashlie Gearhart paced Clearfield with six kills and two blocks.

"She did a good job," Peters said of Parks, "and she actually saved a lot of balls in the back row, too. Again, we need to put the team effort together, and we didn't do it."

Clearfield dropped to 1-2 on the season and will look to get back on track this evening as it hosts West Branch.

"I told them that they should be disappointed with this loss, and that should get them fired up for (tonight)," said Peters. "They need to step it up a level, and they're going to have to. West Branch is a good team, and we can't make the same mistakes that we did tonight."