St. Ambrose survived some shaky play at the end of each set to defeat Judson 25-17, 24-26, 25-23, 27-25 Tuesday night in Lee Lohman Arena. The victory moved the Bees to 12-4 overall and 5-1 in the CCAC.

SAU had what appeared to be comfortable leads late in each of the four sets, but all but the opener ended up coming down to the wire.

After cruising through the first set, the Bees led 23-17 on a Mackenzie Grafton kill late in the second. But St. Ambrose would win just one more point, that coming on a Jill Kavalauskas kill that stopped a five-point Judson run, and gave SAU a 24-22 lead. But the Eagles (7-10, 2-5) ripped off four more straight points to finish off a 9-1 run and steal the set.

St. Ambrose seemingly got back on track by taking a five-point lead late at 22-17 in the third. But Judson again responded. Four straight points cut the lead to 22-21. After an Eagle serving error, the Bees got a kill from Kavalauskas and a big block from Grafton to escape with a 25-23 win.

SAU led by as many as six points early in the fourth and maintained margins of 21-16 and 22-18 late. Judson chipped away and ultimately pulled even at 23-23. A Meredith Siebers kill gave St. Ambrose a match point, but two Judson points quickly erased that and handed the Eagles a set point. The Bees pulled together and back-to-back kills from Kavalauskas and a final one from Siebers finally wrapped up the victory.

Several Bees posted big individual numbers.

Kavalauskas led all players with 19 kills and hit at a .378 clip. Siebers put down 13 kills and Grafton finished with 10. Meredith Umland had eight kills and just a single hitting error. Alexandria Horne recorded five kills and led the team with four total blocks.

Hannah Sondag, who had the other two SAU kills, shared match-high honors with 44 assists.

Maicee Pierce led four players with double-digit digs with 23. Grafton had 14, Kavalauskas 11 and Siebers added 10. Riley Epperson picked up three digs in her one set of work.

Grafton, Kavalauskas, Sondag and Isabelle Todd combined for the six Bee aces in the win.