Denver, Colo.: The #25 Regis Ranger volleyball team fell tonight to Colorado Christian 3-2.  Regis won 25-13 in the first set but Colorado Christian battled back to break a 28-match skid to the Rangers.

Regis (8-5, 4-1 RMAC) hit .333 in the first set compared to .125 for Colorado Christian (9-6, 4-2 RMAC).  CCU came back in the second set winning 25-22, while Regis rebounded to win set three 25-22.  Neither team hit well in set three with Regis hitting just .060 and CCU lower at .038.

Set four was close early on and with the score tied at 13 the upstart Cougars went on a 6-1 run to take a 19-14 lead.  Regis battled back scoring four in a row to cut the lead to 21-19.  Following a CCU timeout, the Cougars put the set away by scoring two in a row to take a 23-19 advantage.  The teams traded sideouts and a fifth set would decide the match after the Cougar's 25-21 victory.

The Cougars took the Ranger crowd out of it early in the fifth set jumping out to an 8-3 lead, but Regis battled back with a 7-2 run to tie the game at 10.  Senior Jessica Howe hit an attack error to put CCU ahead 14-13.  On the next play Erin Anderson hit a ball out of bounds in what appeared to be match point for Colorado Christian.  The bench rushed the floor but the official had called a block error on Brook Wittmayer.

Unfortunately for Regis, that only delayed the inevitable.  With Wittmayer serving, Howe had an attack error to make it 16-15 CCU and then on the next play Andi Weber put away the match point and the Rangers first loss in RMAC action.

Howe led the Rangers with 18 kills, while hitting .302 with six total blocks, helping the Rangers to a season-high 15 blocks.  Freshman Christy Henzgen was next with 14 kills adding eight digs.  Senior Erin Anderson had 10 kills and seven blocks.

Senior Devin Eckhardt tallied 48 assists and another double-double with 14 digs.  Freshman Sage Martinson dug out a game-high 21 balls.

The Rangers don't have long to lick their wounds as they will host 10th ranked Nebraska-Kearney next Friday at 7:00 p.m. at the Regis Fieldhouse.

Click here for boxscore.