Final Stats CONWAY, Ark. – The Nicholls women's volleyball team's hopes of a conference tournament bid took a hit Thursday night with a 3-0 loss to the Central Arkansas Sugar Bears 25-22, 25-18, 27-25, but after the rest of the day's matches the team is still tied for the eighth spot in the conference standings.

Nicholls is tied with McNeese, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Saturday's foe Northwestern State for the final spot, and will need to sweep the Lady Demons and have the Islanders lose in order to secure the spot.

The Colonels (18-13, 5-10) were completely shut down by UCA (15-14, 9-6 SLC) offensively as the Sugar Bears held Nicholls to just .121 hitting as a team, as no player finished with more than ten kills in the match. Jennifer Brandt ended the night with nine, but hit just .111, while UCA had three players with double-digit kills and hit .292 as a group.

With her seven kills on the night, Rachel Yezak now has 999 kills in her career as a Colonel, and after Saturday will have more than 1000 kills and 1100 digs in her career. Yezak also led the team in digs with 13, while Jordan Karst finished with 15 assists on the night.

After five ties within the first 14 points, the Colonels struggled to keep pace with the Sugar Bears early, as UCA would go on rallies of four points twice to jump out to a 19-14 lead. The Colonels would outscore UCA 6-4 to get to within three of the Sugar Bears at 23-20, but Nicholls wouldn't get any closer than two points for the rest of the set and lost 25-23.

The Colonels busted out of the gate with a vengeance in the second set, jumping out to a 4-1 lead and kept that aggression going extending the lead to 7-4 and 10-7. But the Sugar Bears were able to go on a 5-1 run to take the lead and for the rest of the set the Colonels had to come back and tie the match twice at 12-12 and 18-18, but with that energy spent, the Sugar Bears closed out the match with seven-straight points to win 25-18.

Falling behind 2-0 in the third set, the Colonels used another early run to jump out to a 10-6 lead and every time UCA got close to the Colonels, or even tied the match, the Nicholls squad remained composed and began another run. With the score 22-20 in favor of the visitors, The Colonels needed just three points to take the match to a fourth set, but UCA would score three points to take a one point lead. The lead would change hands three more times and forced extra points as the score was tied 25-25, but UCA closed the door and scored the last two points to take the set 27-25.

Regardless, if the Islanders win on Saturday, they will own the cross-divisional tie-breaker having defeated McNeese, Northwestern State and Nicholls this year.

The team's crucial final match will begin at 2 p.m. in Natchitoches against Northwestern.