SIOUX CITY, Iowa – The 2013 season came to a close for the 18th-ranked Embry-Riddle volleyball team on Thursday night. The Eagles dropped a three-set match (25-19, 25-15, 25-21) to Grand View on the final day of pool play at the NAIA National Championship presented by J&L Enterprises and CNOS Foundation at the Tyson Events Center in Sioux City, Iowa.
 
With the loss, the Eagles end the season 22-12, while GVU improves to 33-13 and will advance to the single-elimination bracket on Friday.
 
Jennifer Beatty led the Blue and Gold with eight kills and added eight digs and three blocks (1 solo). Hannah Gray picked up a match-high 24 digs while Tamires Ferreira tallied 22 assists, 14 digs and five kills.
 
Kelly Koutnik led Grand View with a match-high 11 kills, while Erin Roggenburg chipped in with 10 kills. Courtney Bliss recorded 23 digs and Chrissy Daggett registered a match-high 29 assists to go along with seven digs.
 
The Eagles fell behind 4-0 in the first set and were never able to take the lead for the rest of the frame. The Vikings slowly pulled away and eventually took the set, 25-19.
 
ERAU scored the first two points in set two, but an 8-4 run by GVU put the Vikings ahead, 12-8. A 3-0 Eagle run pulled Embry-Riddle to within two points (17-15), but Grand View responded by scoring eight unanswered points to win the frame, 25-15.
 
The Blue and Gold used an early 11-3 run in the third set to run out to a 13-7 lead, their biggest of the match. The Vikings stormed back with a 16-4 run to take control of the set, 23-17. Four straight Viking errors made things interesting, cutting the deficit to just two (23-21), but a setting error by Ferreira followed by a kill from Koutnik ended the set and match, 25-21 and 3-0.
 
Embry-Riddle's four seniors (Emily Jacobson, Leslie Roper, Morgan Shattuck, Cailey Washington) finish their careers as the first group to graduate having won The Sun Conference regular season and conference championships in each of their years at ERAU. Jacobson, Roper and Shattuck are the first players in ERAU history to have won four conference tournaments; those three players never lost a Sun Conference match, regular season or postseason, also a first in program history. During their four-year careers, the Eagles went 114-28 overall and 53-0 in conference play (regular season and postseason combined). Those three seniors won the conference regular season and conference tournament and advanced to the NAIA National Championship final site all four years.