There will be no national championship repeat for the Washington University women’s volleyball team.

The third-ranked Bears fell to No. 1 Emory University, 3-1 (18-25, 29-27, 25-21, 25-20), ending the team’s season in the Wash. U. Field House in front of a crowd of 1,722.

The two squads had faced off twice this year, with the Bears taking the first match-up in University Athletic Association (UAA) regular season play by a 3-2 score on Oct. 16 and the Eagles returned the favor on Nov. 6 with a 3-1 win in the conference championship match.

With two teams very familiar with each other squaring off one last time, Emory took the rubber match and brought Wash. U.’s season to an end.

“One loss…it hurts, but it doesn’t make our season anywhere close to a failure,” head coach Rich Luenemann said. “We lost to a very good team.”

As they had in every game in the tournament, the Bears came out strong in the first set, largely thanks to freshman Tessa Blood’s four kills in the Bears’ first 10 points. After Emory fought back to a 14-14 tie, Wash. U. made a decisive 6-1 run behind freshman Meghan Byrne’s serve and would take the set on a kill by freshman Kaia Schwartz.

The team hit .324 on the set with 16 kills and five errors. Also of note, on the defensive side, was sophomore All-American Kelly Pang, who registered nine digs – including an incredible three on a single rally early in the set.

“We did a really good job scouting,” Pang said. “Our block did a good job closing, so I was able to work around it and dig the shots up.”

But after the first set, Emory slowly started to turn the match in its favor. The Eagles maintained a slim lead over nearly the entire set, only letting the Bears get more than two points in a row once, and after the teams traded points from 21-21 to 27-27, Emory finally pulled away in the final two points to win the set 29-27.

Sophomore Marilee Fisher’s 15 assists paced the offense in the second set, as Byrne and Blood both picked up five more kills.

The third set went back and forth, as the two teams were tied nine times until the score hit 18-18. The Eagles then inched out to a 22-21 lead before grabbing the last three points of the set to take a 2-1 lead. After the Bears’ strong first set, the team hit .228 in the second and third sets – compared to .309 for the Eagles.

“They had some big swings toward the end of the second game and then into the third game,” Luenemann said. “I think something like that can demoralize a team, but it didn’t demoralize us. We went back to the bench and talked about being more aggressive coming out.”

Down 2-1, the Bears were in familiar territory: they came back from down 2-1 against three ranked teams this year – in fact, most recently against the Eagles on October 16 – and did the same in this round last year against Hope College. Unfortunately for the Bears, they were unable to pull out one final comeback, and the fourth set of the match would be their last of the season.

The set started very similarly to the third, with the two teams trading the lead until the score hit 13-13. Fisher was then called for a double-hit, Emory’s Kelsey Krzyston followed with an ace, and after a Wash. U. timeout, an attack error by sophomore Drew Hargrave put the Emory up 16-13.

From there, the Bears came within one point of tying the match on five different occasions, but they couldn’t close the gap. After a Hargrave kill brought the Emory lead to 21-20, a service error and three straight kills ended the set at 25-20 and the match at 3-1.

For the Bears, it was their two freshman outsides, Blood and Byrne, who led the charge on offense with 15 and 13 kills, respectively, while junior All-American Lauren Budde had 11 and Hargrave had 10. Fisher had 48 assists on the night.

“That was due to excellent scouting, talking on the back-row part, telling me what shots were open at that moment,” Blood said. “Just a lot of communication and a lot of scouting really helped me out with that.”

Defensively, Pang was exceptional, with 30 digs to conclude an excellent run for her to close out the season. Over the team’s final three matches, Pang tallied 85 digs for an incredible 8.5 per set.

“[Kelly is] the best backcourt player in Division III, one of the top liberos in America, regardless of division,” Luenemann said. “She’s the best backcourt player I’ve ever seen in Division III, [and the best that] I’ve ever coached. She’s unbelievable.”

Senior Ali Hoffman also picked up 12 digs in her final match at Wash. U.

While the national player of the year, Emory’s Amelia McCall, was held to a .154 hitting percentage, with 12 kills and 6 errors on 39 attempts, the Bears had no answer for Breanah Borque, who hit .435 and tallied 24 kills – including nine in the clinching set. Natalie Schonefeld picked up 56 assists, which were key to the Eagles’ offensive success, and Emory was strong on the defensive end as four players registered at least 11 digs.

With the loss, Emory snapped the Bears’ 33-game home winning streak, as the Bears’ sensational run on the season ended at a record of 35-4.

“The kids played well on both sides,” Luenemann said. “You just had two great teams play, and one great team lost and one great team won, and that’s what it’s all about.”