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St. Paul, Minn.- The No.24 ranked Saint Benedict volleyball team's magical season came to an end tonight (Nov. 10) as they fell 3-1 to No. 8 St. Thomas in the NCAA Regional Final.

The Blazers (29-6) opened with a 25-23 win in the first set, but the Tommies (37-1) seized the momentum and took the net three sets 25-18, 25-13 and 25-22 respectively to win the match. Since Sept. 12, the Blazers have lost just three matches, all at the hands of the Tommies.

"It was two great teams," head coach Nicole Hess said after the match. "And when you get to this stage of the game we're proud that we are one of 16 teams left still playing, that's an honor. Something got to give when two good teams meet, and tonight we just didn't quite have enough, but overall I'm pretty happy with how we played and think we competed pretty hard."

The Blazers competed right to the very end, coming back from a poor third set and 17-12 deficit in the fourth to nearly force a fifth set. After going down 17-12, they rattled off six straight capped by a kill from Alexa Rinde, one of her match high 17 on the night.

After UST went back on top, a kill from Chelsea Rachel held off match point and pulled the Blazers within one at 23-22, forcing the Tommies into a timeout. Out of the break, a Blazer serve error, followed by an attack error were enough for the Tommies to take the win, halting what would have been a great comeback by the Blazers, taking back the momentum once again.

"The momentum was crazy," Taya Kockelman said, after finishing with 36 assists to go along with 13 digs and five kills. "Game three they had all the momentum, we started game two with it, and then game four was back and forth. They got the momentum, at the end we couldn't recover from that."

The fourth set fully captured the back-and-forth nature that played out through the match. The two teams traded blows, with each surging for four and five points at a time, only to see the other come right back with a counter attack. On the night, there were 12 total leads changes, including four in the fourth set, while the score sat tied another 19 times, eight alone in the fourth.

"In the second set we jumped out to a pretty good lead, and they kept fighting back, and we unfortunately couldn't sustain it. It was just two good teams, two very good teams," Hess said.

The final numbers show how even it was, with 56 kills and a .184 attack percentage for the Tommies, to 51 and .137 for the Blazers.  On defense, CSB finished with 95 digs to UST's 96.

"It was a tough game, they were giving it at us, and we were pushing right back," Lexi Alm said - who also recorded her 1,000th career kill in the match. "Unfortunately it didn't turn out in our favor."

The silver lining to the loss is the extremely bright future this team is primed to have. Loaded with young talent, all their key cogs are set to return in 2013.

"In the locker room when we were leaving, everyone was excited," Hess said. "I think everyone sees what we can be, and we advanced two rounds farther than we did last year which was definitely a goal, and I'm pretty excited with that could be in the future."