St. Ambrose did everything but win the match.

The Bees took the first two sets, built a five-point lead in the fourth, and ultimately were unable to hold on to a 7-2 lead in the fifth in a 3-2 home loss to Trinity International Tuesday night.

The 21-25, 21-25, 25-20, 25-22, 16-14 loss dropped SAU to 7-3 overall and 2-1 in the CCAC.

After winning the first and second sets, the Bees stumbled in the third. But the team regrouped and built a five-point lead as late as 18-13 in the fourth on a Jessica Hemm kill. But Trinity International (3-2, 2-0 CCAC) recovered with a six-point run. The two teams traded points with SAU taking a 22-21 lead on back-to-back Trojan hitting errors. That proved to be the Bees' final point of the set. TIU won the next four to force a decisive fifth set.

St. Ambrose seemingly took control in the early stages of the fifth. Three kills from Meredith Siebers, two from Riley Epperson and another from Rachael Dion gave SAU a 7-2 lead.

But again the Bees stalled. Trinity ran off another six-point run to climb back into the match. Similar to the end of the fourth, the teams traded points. SAU earned the first match point at 14-13 on a Jill Kavalauskas kill. That was erased by a TIU kill. Another Trojan kill gave them their first match point, and they capitalized, taking advantage of a Bee hitting error to complete the comeback.

Kavalauskas led all players with 22 kills. Epperson and Siebers each had 12 and Dion collected eight.

Amber Tomlin led St. Ambrose with 35 assists. Hannah Sondag was credited with 15.

Maicee Pierce (18), Tomlin (16) and Kavalauskas (15) all picked up double-digit digs.

Along with six kills, Hemm was in on five blocks in the loss.

The Bees return to action Thursday when they host Olivet Nazarene at 5 p.m. in Lee Lohman Arena.