St. Ambrose fell below .500 in conference play following a 26-24, 25-19, 25-18 home loss to Trinity Christian Tuesday night. SAU is now 8-12 overall and 4-5 in the conference.

It may have been a different match if the Bees would have been able to hang on after rallying late in the first set. Trailing 18-15, St. Ambrose got kills from Jason Bageanis, Richard Reed and Nick Fox, and an ace from Jesse Moreno, as part of a 6-1 run to take a 21-19 lead. Another Fox kill and a Jake Snyder ace had the lead at 23-21 late. But Trinity Christian (12-9, 4-4 CCAC) won three straight points and five of the final six to steal the set.

After leading 4-3 early in the second, the Bees surrendered a five-point run to the Trolls and never got closer than three points the rest of the set. It was a similar story in the third as Trinity Christian raced out to a 6-2 lead. Back-to-back Bee points closed the gap to 6-4 before the Trolls won three in a row and again led by at least three from there.

Bageanis led SAU with nine kills. Fox finished with seven, Skyler Marushige had seven and Reed added four. Snyder finished with 22 assists, three kills, four digs and a pair of aces. Moreno had a team-best nine digs. Reed picked up four.

St. Ambrose will hit the road to visit Viterbo Thursday.