Wilmington, N.C. – The Camels came up just short in a marathon of a match Saturday evening at UNCW. The Seahawks won the five-set thriller that took just shy of three hours to complete, with four of the five sets being decided by the minimum two points.
 
The loss drops Campbell to 6-8, 4-2 in the CAA while UNCW remains unbeaten in the league at 8-7, 5-0.
 
Campbell capitalized on a handful of Seahawk mistakes to pull out the opening set 26-24. UNCW committed eight service errors and five attack errors to account for half of Campbell's points in the first. Chloe Cook led the CU offense with five kills in the first.
 
It was another tough battle in the second set, this time seeing UNCW coming away with a 28-26 set win. After trailing 23-19, Campbell stormed back with a 5-0 run to reach set point. From there it was back and forth until the Seahawks prevailed with a service error and kill.
 
Campbell found itself in a similar situation in the third set, trailing by five late at 19-14, and once again climbed all the way back. After taking a lead at 22-21 the Camels didn't squander the chance to go up 2-1 using a kill from Emily Campe and a pair of attack errors to close out the set.
 
UNCW won a marathon fourth set 30-28 to keep the match alive. The Camels held off four set points and UNCW avoided one for Campbell in the late stages of the set. CU had no answer for Katie Lanz in the set, who had eight kills including each of the last two points to force the fifth set.
 
Campbell never led in the fifth set, though also never trailed by more than three. After Campbell fell behind 7-4 the teams traded points the rest of the way to a 15-12 UNCW victory.
 
Melody Paige led the offense with 13 kills on .464 hitting, committing zero attack errors on the day. Abbie Tuyo was also error free with 11 kills. Chloe Cook amassed 13 kills as well, but did commit eight errors. Claranne Fechter led three Camels in double-figure digs with 24.
 
Campbell will look to split the series tomorrow at 2 p.m.