A matchup between the top two teams in the CCAC lived up to the hype. But in front of a large home crowd, the Bees came up a little short against conference-leading Saint Xavier, falling 25-23, 14-25, 16-25, 25-19, 15-8.

The loss ends SAU's pursuit of a regular-season conference championship, but the Bees (21-8, 12-3 CCAC) can clinch second place with a home win over Olivet Nazarene Thursday. St. Ambrose is currently tied in second with Indiana South Bend, a team SAU defeated 3-0 in early September.

A shot for a conference title was nearly on the line Thursday as St. Ambrose took a 2-1 lead over Saint Xavier (20-7, 15-1 CCAC) Tuesday night.

After a back-and-forth first set, the Bees were absolutely dominant in sets two and three. SAU totaled 27 kills against just seven hitting errors over those two sets to get a single set away from victory.

But the Cougars roared back in the fourth, racing to a quick 18-11 lead. The Bees made a push late, using a pair of Meredith Siebers kills and another from Mackenzie Grafton to close to within 20-17. That would be as close as SAU would get as SXU won five of the final seven points to force a fifth set.

Kills from Jill Kavalauskas and Grafton gave St. Ambrose a quick 2-1 lead, but after a Saint Xavier serving error knotted the score at 4-4, the Cougars took control. SXU ripped off a nine-point run to effectively ending the match. A block from Payton Wendt and Meredith Umland came part of a 3-0 surge that closed the gap to 13-7, but even a late Kavalauskas kill wasn't enough in the five-set loss.

Siebers led four players with double-digit kills with 14. Grafton had 13 and Kavalauskas added 11. Umland and Alexandria Horne each chipped in with five kills and Wendt collected four.

Hannah Sondag led the team with 22 assists and added 15 digs. Macy Watkins was credited with 18 assists. Maicee Pierce led St. Ambrose with 21 digs. Grafton finished with 12. 

Wendt led the team with six total blocks. Umland had four. Lexi Huntley recorded a pair of aces in the setback.

SAU will close the regular season with that important match against Olivet Nazarene Thursday. The Bees are looking for their best conference finish since the team won the Midwest Collegiate Conference championship in 2009. SAU's best CCAC finish since joining the conference in 2015 is a tie for fourth, which happened in 2020.