Thousand Oaks, Calif., September 11, 2021 – The No. 18 Washington University in St. Louis volleyball team closed out the East To West Battle with a 3-1 (27-25, 25-22, 15-25, 25-19) win over the host school Cal Lutheran. The Bears return to St. Louis 6-2.

As the score would indicate, the opening set was close from the first serve, with multiple ties.

A kill from junior Alaina Bohrer gave the Bears a slight, 5-4 lead, before Cal Lutheran scored four-straight points to go up, 8-5. WashU kept it close, however, ultimately tying things up at 12.

In total, the set was tied nine different times and Cal Lutheran held a slight advantage throughout most of the set.

As the set wound down, the Bears scored three straight to take their first lead since early in the set. Bohrer recorded a kill, followed by an attacking error from Cal Lutheran and a kill from Jasmine Sells which put WashU up 25-24.

After the Regals tied it up again, 25-25, WashU closed out the set with a kill from Sells and an error from Cal Lutheran.

The Bears scored the first two points of the second set but Cal Lutheran followed that up with a 7-0 run to go up 7-2.

The Regals continued to lead, but the Bears slowly chipped away at their lead. A 5-0 run from WashU behind kills from Sells and Abby Li and service ace from Jordan Sandberg.

Ultimately, a service ace from Michaela Bach tied the set, 16-16 and an attacking error from Cal Lutheran pushed the Bears ahead.

After three more ties, WashU took a 21-19 lead and did not relinquish that advantage. Bach added a kill and Chloe Emch recorded a service ace to give the Bears at 23-20 lead. Kills from Li and Bohrer closed out the set and put WashU up 2-0 in the match.

The third set started out even, tied four times before Cal Lutheran started to pull away. The Regals scored five-straight points to take a 14-9 lead, and added to that with another 4-0 run for a, 18-10 advantage.

The Regals continued to produce offensively, putting up three-straight points to take a double-digit, 21-11 lead over WashU. Back-to-back kills from Kennedy Crane and Lauren Heller gave Cal Lutheran the set win and forced a fourth set.

The Bears came out firing on all cylinders in the fourth set, going on an 8-2 run which included kills from Li and Bach as well as service aces from Emch and Elise Gilroy.

The Bears continued to hold a multi-point lead, and after scoring four-straight on a kill from Caitlin Lorenz, a pair or errors from Cal Lutheran and a Jordan Sandberg service ace, went up 15-7.

WashU used another 5-0 run which included three services aces from Emch to take a 20-9 advantage over the Regals.

Cal Lutheran went on a run of its own, scoring four-straight to cut WashU's advantage to 23-17.

Despite the Regals comeback, the Bears held on and a kill from Bohrer closed out the match.

Sells finished with a team-high 16 kills while Bach had 15. Taryn Gurbach recorded 14 digs and Emch had 37 assists and six service aces.

The Bears are back in action on Wednesday when they host Webster at 7 p.m. in one final tune-up before they begin UAA play. WashU then heads to Chicago for the first UAA Round Robin against Rochester, NYU and Chicago.