The volleyball match began slipping away from the Seawolves, and their splendid season with it, during the third set Saturday night. With two sets in hand, their emotions still ran high but their execution began to waver. Though they enjoyed flirtations with excellence again, they could not sustain it.
All the while, the Cal State San Bernardino Coyotes slowly, diligently, elevated their game, pulling the match into their collective grasp. And even among the 2,256 spirited, hopeful UAA partisans at the Alaska Airlines Center, you could hear their sense that opportunity was escaping the Seawolves, sliding off their collective fingertips.
So it went in the NCAA Division II West Regional semifinal, where Cal State San Bernardino rallied from the brink of defeat to eliminate the Seawolves in five sets that required 2 hours, 40 minutes.
The Coyotes prevailed 26-28, 21-25, 25-17, 25-16, 15-12.
Cal State San Bernardino (28-5) advances to play Western Washington University (25-5) in Sunday's championship match at 4 p.m. The winner moves on to the Elite 8 and a shot at the national championship next week in Tampa, Florida.
For the Seawolves (27-3), thoughts of what might have been will have to suffice.
Certainly, they must wonder how badly the loss of Great Northwest Athletic Conference Player of the Year Katelynn Zanders undercut their ambition. Zanders suffered a sprained left ankle in Friday night's five-set quarterfinal win over Dixie State of Utah, and though she dressed in full match gear Saturday, she also wore a walking boot and spent most of the night on the end of the bench, a star turned spectator.
Even so, as the Seawolves forlornly walked off the gym floor to appreciate applause from their raucous supporters, they departed with magical memories that will sustain their drive in the offseason – they came so close.
They won more matches than any team in program history and lost fewer matches than any team. They opened the season with a program-record 14-match winning streak and entered Saturday with a 12-match winning streak that is the third-longest in program history. They had the highest winning percentage in program history (.900) and turned home matches into a must-see event – hey, they have several times outdrawn the school's Division I hockey team.
And the regional semifinals matched the deepest any Seawolves team has ever journeyed in the postseason.
Yet the Seawolves could not answer the attack of Coyotes senior Alexandra Torline. She delivered a match-high 30 kills, many of them absolute rockets, and unleashed just four misfires. And when she wasn't overpowering the Seawolves, she nicked them with finesse – twice early in the fifth set, Torline eschewed hammering the ball in favor of gently tapping it into open space in the UAA defense.
Lauren Nicholson complemented Torline with 21 kills and Malika O'Brien added 11.
In Zanders' absence, several Seawolves filled in admirably.
Redshirt freshman Leah Swiss cranked 25 kills, 10 more than her previous career-high, and played with passion, handing out furious high-fives when she and her teammates prospered.
Caitlin Hanson added 10 kills, with just two attack errors, and Julia Mackey offset eight attack errors with 15 kills. Junior Morgan Hooe orchestrated the offense with 51 assists and added three aces, one shy of freshman Taylor Noga's match-high four aces.
Still, all of that was not quite enough, not against the Coyotes, who were as poised as their coach Kim Cherniss, who has guided them for 25 seasons.
As the teams crossed paths along the net in the usual post-match handshake line, Hooe and several of her teammates featured red eyes.
A soaring season that began with an exhibition tour in Europe and included a GNAC title, all-star awards aplenty for both Seawolves players and eighth-year coach Chris Green, and a third straight trip to the NCAAs, was over.
All the Seawolves' success will be considerable consolation for them once their tears have dried and they get some distance from the disappointment of Saturday night.
Only one team ends any season with celebration and satisfaction. That club won't be UAA this go-round, but the Seawolves head into their offseason with ample reasons to hold their heads high.
Western Washington 3, UC San Diego 2
Western Washington's volleyball team persevered, then it prospered.
The No. 16-ranked Vikings never led until they put away UC San Diego in the fifth set and advanced to Sunday's championship match at the NCAA Division II West Regional Championships.
Western Washington won 16-25, 25-23, 17-25, 25-12, 15-8.
Western Washington committed just seven hitting errors on 205 attacks. Abby Phelps racked 16 kills, Rachel Roeder delivered 15 (without an error), and Jennica McPherson and Joellee Buckner each contributed 10.
That was enough to offset a match-high 25 kills from UC San Diego's Danielle Dahle, who generated 69 attacks. Kameron Cooper had 15 kills for the Tritons and Meagan Wright added 13.
NCAA Division II West Regional Championships
At Alaska Airlines Center
Saturday's semifinal results
(Seeding in parentheses)
(2) Western Washington d. (6) UC San Diego, 16-25, 25-23, 17-25, 25-12, 15-8
(4) Cal State San Bernardino d. (1) UAA, 26-28, 21-25, 25-17, 25-16, 15-12.
Sunday's championship match
4 p.m. -- (2) Western Washington vs. winner (4) Cal State San Bernardino (28-5)