A strong start was wasted as St. Ambrose fell at Viterbo 21-25, 25-22, 25-17, 25-20 Thursday night.

The Bees came out of the gates fast, winning the first three points behind a block and a kill from Nick Fox. After Viterbo (10-4, 4-4 CCAC) closed to within 10-9, St. Ambrose answered with four straight points. The final point, coming on a block from Fox and Skyler Marushige, gave SAU a 14-9 lead. The margin was at least three points the rest of the way with a Marushige kill closing out the set.

St. Ambrose appeared on its way to grabbing a two-set lead after an 8-1 run built a 20-15 lead. But then things unraveled. The V-Hawks won six points in a row as part of their own 8-1 run. They took advantage of four aces, two Bee ball handling errors and an SAU hitting error to go back in front 23-21, and evened the match at a set apiece three points later.

St. Ambrose never really recovered after that.

Viterbo won the first three points in taking a fast 7-2 lead in the third on the way to a 2-1 lead. The V-Hawks used a 5-0 run midway through the fourth to extend a 15-13 lead to 20-13 in closing out the match 3-1.

The loss overshadowed some big individual performances for SAU.

Marushige led all players with 17 kills. Jason Bageanis put down 12 against just two hitting errors. Fox (six), Jeramie Gutierrez (four) and Dan Rice (three) combined for 13 kills.

Jake Snyder had a match-high 38 assists to go along with five digs. Jesse Moreno and Richard Reed each recorded 10 digs. Colin Teresi picked up six.

Viterbo finished with just one more kill than St. Ambrose (45-44) but registered 12 aces to SAU's four.

The Bees will now head to Georgetown, Ky., to play Georgetown Saturday and Bluefield College Sunday.