Six different times St. Ambrose was a single point away from forcing a decisive fifth set. But that point escaped the Bees each time.

And so No. 10 St. Ambrose will have to wait to earn an outright conference championship following a 19-25, 25-12, 25-23, 37-35 loss at Cardinal Stritch Thursday night.

The Bees, who have already guaranteed themselves at least a share of the CCAC regular-season title, need either to win at Judson next Thursday or have Saint Xavier fall in one of their final three conference matches to secure the outright crown.

St. Ambrose appeared poised to take care of business Thursday after winning the first set 25-19. But after dropping the second and third sets, then came the marathon fourth set. And in that set, SAU missed out on six set-point opportunities, but also erased six match-point chances for the Wolves (8-14, 4-4 CCAC), before finally succumbing.

Neither team held a lead of more than two points in the entire fourth set. St. Ambrose led 23-21 on a Scott MacGillis kill, but that was followed by consecutive Cardinal Stritch points. From there, the match went back and forth. The Bees held leads of 24-23, 25-24, 26-25, 32-31, 34-33 and 35-34. The final set point came on another MacGillis kill, his team-leading11th and final one of the match. Back-to-back CSU kills erased the set point and gave the Wolves their seventh match point, and this time they capitalized, with a block ending the match.

It was the longest set the Bees had played since the 2008 team dropped a first set to Park 37-35 in 2008, back when each set was played to 30 points.

Zach Schmidt was right behind MacGillis, finishing with 11 kills. He had just one hitting error in 18 chances. Jaylen Clark and Levi Vermeulen each collected nine kills.

Adam Campbell led SAU with 36 assists and 10 digs.

The Bees will take a break from conference play to visit No. 4 Grand View Monday night.