RELATED CLICKS:
Box score | NC season stats | Denver recap

DENVER, Colo. -- There's just something about Denver's Hamilton Gymnasium that's got Northern Colorado volleyball spooked.

The Bears went up 2-0 Tuesday night inside Hamilton and seemed poise to end their three-match losing streak to their Sun Belt rivals from the south. 

But then it was déjà vu all over again for Northern Colorado, who failed to close out the match and fell 3-2 to the Pioneers for a second straight season. The whole scene was eerily reminiscent of a match here almost exactly one year ago, where the Bears came into downtown Denver on a bit of a roll and won the first two matches with little to no trouble before falling apart after intermission and failing to win that elusive third set.

That's exactly what happened Tuesday, as Northern Colorado cruised in game one (25-16), showed some grit in game two (26-24) but couldn't stop the bleeding when the going got tough in games three through four (22-25, 16-25, 13-15).

The Bears (8-6, 2-0 Big Sky) own a 25-7 all-time record against the Pioneers (5-9, 0-0 Sun Belt) but they've lost four straight to DU, with three of those defeats coming in Hamilton.

After winning its first match of the season in a five-set thriller against Southern Methodist, Northern Colorado is now 1-3 this season when its matches go to the tiebreak.

Denver's Emmy Davidsmeyer was a main reason why that streak continued Tuesday.

The senior from Colorado Springs put togther an all-world performance against the shellshocked Bears, throwing down a career-high 26 kills -- more than any opponent has against Northern Colorado all season and more than the entire Weber State team did last Thursday in Greeley -- and finished with a .523 hitting percentage and proved why she came into the match ranked 13th in the nation in kills per set.

She also served up a pair of aces, scooped five digs and had six blocks.

Like they have for much of this season, seniors Kenzie Shreeve and Allison Raguse led Northern Colorado's offensive game in the loss. Shreeve finished with 15 kills, five digs and two blocks, while Raguse came up with 10 kills on .391 hitting to go along with a season-high tying 15 digs.

Freshman Kelley Arnold tied her season high with 11 kills, and she also added three blocks.

Senior Breanna VanDerMost turned in another solid defensive game, collecting a match-high 22 digs, and freshman Marissa Hughes dished out 44 assists.

The Bears cruised through the first game, taking leads of 17-12 and 22-13, before closing out the Pioneers with Raguse's first kill of the match.

Five of Shreeve's kills came in the game-one win, and Arnold and Ashley Lichtenberg followed with three. The Bears outhit Denver .419 to .109 in the game and had 25 digs to the Pioneers' 15.or

The second game was more competitive with 12 ties and five lead changes, but the Bears still headed into the break with a 2-0 advantage after a Denver attack error gave them a 26-24 win.

Shreeve entered the locker room with 10 kills, while senior Taylor Smith recorded in game two four of Northern Colorado's 12 blocks in the match.

The Pioneers blew out of the locker room by outhitting Northern Colorado .351 to .158 in game three and .484 to .176 in the fourth. Davidsmeyer combined for 17 kills in those two wins alone, setting the stage for the tiebreaker.

The fifth game was a nip-and-tuck affair, with the last tie coming at 9-9. Denver eventually pushed its advantage to 14-10 before the Bears battled back to make it 14-13.

The Pioneers sealed the deal and completed their second unbelievable comeback in as many seasons when Alexis Ninos slammed a kill off the Northern Colorado block.