HOLLAND, Mich. – The Elmhurst volleyball team's quest for a national championship came up two matches short as the Bluejays dropped a 25-22, 25-23, 26-24 contest to the University of St. Thomas in the semifinals of the NCAA Championship at Hope College.

"This was a great season for us, but in the end we came up just a bit short," said head coach Julie Hall. "This was such a close match that every point mattered and we just made a few too many mistakes. We fell behind two sets, but our players never quit and battled to the very end of the match and I couldn't be any prouder of this group."

Elmhurst (32-8, ranked ninth in the AVCA poll) started the opening set strong, sprinting out to a 14-5 lead. St. Thomas slowly started to chip away, scoring five straight points to cut the Bluejays' lead down to four points. The Tommies continued to close the gap as Elmhurst struggled to generate points off of its own serve. St. Thomas (38-1, ranked eighth in the AVCA poll) pulled even at 21-21 before taking its first lead of the set at 22-21. The Bluejays evened the match at 22-22, but the fourth Elmhurst service error of the set gave the Tommies a 23-22 lead. St. Thomas scored the last two points to put away the first set at 25-22. After building the nine-point edge, the Bluejays failed to produce a point off their own serve for the rest of the set, giving the ball back to the Tommies on eight straight serves.

"We got off to such a quick start and then we started to fall in to a pattern of mistakes with service errors and shanking some passes," Hall said. "I probably should have called a timeout sooner than I did to try and stop their momentum."

Elmhurst's struggles continued in the second set. With the score even at 9-9, St. Thomas used a 6-2 run to build a 15-11 lead. The Tommies pushed their lead to six points at 21-15. Elmhurst scored three straight to close to within three points and pulled to within two points at 23-21, but a kill from Nicole Potts gave the Tommies three set-points at 24-21. Elmhurst fought off two set points to pull to within a point at 24-23, but Paige Brimeyer scored the set-clinching kill for the Tommies. Errors continued to mount for the Bluejays as servicer errors, attack errors, and ball-handling errors, resulted in nine points for the Tommies in the second set.

The third set started back-and-forth as the score was deadlocked at 8-8 after the first 16 points. St Thomas slowly opened up a 15-12 lead at the media timeout, before the Bluejays mounted a rally. Trailing by three at 17-14, Elmhurst used a 5-1 run to take a 19-18 lead. The Bluejays led again at 20-19, but back-to-back kills from St. Thomas gave the Tommies a 21-20 lead, forcing Elmhurst to call its second timeout. The Bluejays evened the match on a kill from Sam Szarmach, but the eighth service error of the match on Elmhurst gave the Tommies a 22-21 lead. A St. Thomas hit into the net evened the set at 22-22 and Elmhurst went on top when Antonéya Veasy Smith and Megan Reynolds combined to stuff a St. Thomas attack. Kelly Foley pounded down a kill for the Tommies to knot the set at 23-all. An Elmhurst attack in the net set up a St. Thomas match point, but Veasy Smith hammered a kill down the line to even the match. St. Thomas answered right back with a kill to set up their second match point and a double-hit call on Elmhurst handed the Tommies the set and the match.

"In this tight of a match, every point is so important, and we just shot ourselves in the foot too many times with our errors in our serving and serve receive," said Hall.

Elmhurst finished the match hitting .215 while St. Thomas hit .197. The Tommies recorded 66 digs compared to the Bluejays' 54.

Szarmach led Elmhurst's attack in the loss with 10 kills and seven digs while Reynolds totaled eight kills and five blocks. Marci Novak and Kaitlyn Wilks finished with seven kills apiece. Veasy Smith registered six kills. Katie Rueffer totaled a team-high 20 assists to go along with five kills. Erin Thill finished with 13 assists while Hannah Lessen tallied 19 digs.

Jill Greenfield led St. Thomas with 11 kills and 11 digs. Kelly Foley tallied eight kills while Potts and Brimeyer finished with seven kills apiece. Kaiti Wachter totaled a team-leading 24 digs while Kati Maher led the squad in assists with 18.

Despite coming up short in their bid for a national championship, Hall's squad turned in the best season of Elmhurst volleyball in over 25 years. The Bluejays captured their first CCIW title since the 2004 season and won its first regional championship under Hall's guidance. The Bluejays were ranked among the top 15 teams in the nation all season long, and earned their first trip to the NCAA semifinals since the 1987 season.

"This team is such an incredible group," said Hall. "This is the group that helped reestablish Elmhurst as a national power in volleyball two years ago and I couldn't be any prouder of them. They believed in each other and always left everything they had on the court. Even if we hadn't achieved all the accomplishments we had this year, I wouldn't trade them for any other group."

Elmhurst loses only five seniors from this season and returns the bulk of its rotation for next year, including four all-conference players and a pair of All-Americans in Reynolds and Wilks.