Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Martin Luther College’s Kelsey Birschbach attacks the ball during a home match with Carleton College on Wednesday night.

NEW ULM — The Martin Luther College volleyball team found itself on the wrong side of a comeback on Wednesday night as Carleton College came from two sets down to win 22-25, 23-25, 26-24, 28-26, 15-8 in nonconference action at MLC.

Kelsey Birschbach led MLC (4-9) with 15 kills, while Lauren Paulsen had 12 kills and Kaylie Solomon had nine. Katelyn Aswege led MLC in digs with 16, while Abigail Winkel and Kylie Wolf each had 19 set assists.

Annalise Sokolow led Carleton (4-12) with 18 kills, while Jancyn Appel had 16.

Every set but the last saw both teams trading points frequently. After a game-ending kill by Birschbach ended Set 1, MLC struggled to start the second set and fell down 3-0 before getting on the board after a Carleton service error.

MLC’s biggest lead of the second set came on a kill by Solomon to go up 20-16. After back-to-back MLC errors brought Carleton within 1, an attack error gave MLC the second set and a 2-0 lead in the match.

MLC led by as much as 3, 8-5, early in the third set, which was the largest lead either team ended up holding in the razor-close third set. After MLC tied it at 24-all late on a kill by Paulsen, a kill by Sokolow and an MLC attack error gave Carleton the set.

The fourth set was equally close, with eight ties and six lead changes. Carleton jumped ahead early with a 4-0 lead before a kill by Birschbach got MLC on the board.

Kills by Paulsen and Paige Biesterfeld gave MLC its first lead of the fourth set, 16-15. MLC fell behind by 4 again but ended up battling back to take a 25-24 lead after a kill by Winkel. Carleton continued to answer back, however, and eventually won the extended set on back-to-back kills by Appel.

Momentum was on Carleton’s side from there out as it took an early 8-2 lead in the fifth set after back-to-back kills by Sokolow. MLC got within 4 before Carleton completed its comeback with the 15-8 win.

MLC hits the road for two matches next, taking on North Central at 1 p.m. and Northwestern at 5 p.m. on Saturday.