St. Ambrose had its chances Thursday morning. The Bees just couldn't capitalize on them in the end. And it led to a season-ending 21-25, 25-23, 24-26, 25-16, 15-9 loss to No. 18 Bellevue in pool play at the NAIA Championships in Sioux City, Iowa.

By losing its two pool-play matches, SAU was eliminated from the national tournament. Bellevue will play top-seed Northwestern (Iowa) in the final match of the grouping Friday morning with the winner advancing to Saturday's quarterfinals.

After fighting off a set point in the third set thanks to a Meredith Umland kill, St. Ambrose took a 2-1 lead thanks to a kill from Mackenzie Grafton and an ace from Kaleigh Bergschneider.

But then the Bees immediately were forced to play from behind in the fourth after losing five of the first six points of the set. SAU was as close as 19-16 late before Bellevue (26-9) won the final six points to force the fifth set.

Three straight kills from Grafton helped the Bees build a 5-2 lead in the fifth but the team stalled there as the Bruins ripped off a five-point run to go in front 7-5. Back-to-back kills from Grafton and Meredith Siebers forged an 8-8 tie but St. Ambrose would win just one more point from there, that coming on a Bellevue hitting error that had the Bees down just 10-9. The Bruins won the final five points of the match.

Grafton closed her CCAC Player of the Year campaign with 17 kills and 21 digs. Umland put down 13 kills against just three hitting errors. Siebers finished with 11 kills and 13 digs. Alex Horne had six kills and Audrey Witte added two.

Hannah Sondag led all players with 45 assists while also picking up 15 digs. Lexi Huntley matched Grafton with a team-high 21 digs.

Bergschneider (three), Skyler Kuntzman (two), Grafton and Adriana Diaz each had aces in the loss. Horne was in on seven blocks while Umland recorded six, including three solos.

St. Ambrose finished the year as CCAC Tournament champions, a nationals final-site participant for the first time since 2010, and with a 20-16 record.