You could see the curtains slowly start to close on the women’s volleyball team’s season midway through the third set of their semifinal match against VCU Saturday.

GW’s communication started to unravel, balls fell between players and uncharacteristic errors cost the team down the stretch – all contributing to the Colonials’ straight-sets loss to the No. 2 Rams (27-25, 25-19, 25-18).

The Rams, who had a first round bye, were able to come away with the victory despite an average performance from their top performer, and Atlantic 10 player of the year Romana Kriskova.

GW managed to keep the first set close, but was never able to find a rhythm in Saturday’s match. Head coach Amanda Ault said the Colonials beat themselves.

“We just didn’t have it tonight,” Ault said. “Thirty-one hitting errors. We got out-dug, we got out-blocked.”

Nearing the end of the first set, GW found themselves in a good position to take the set after climbing back into contention from a seven-point deficit. With the momentum seemingly on their side after a kill from junior Kelsey Newman notched the set at 25-25, Newman hit a service error into the net to put the Rams up 26-25. An attack error by Landon Garvik ultimately gave the Rams the set, as errors haunted GW all night.

The Rams, although not perfect, limited their errors while benefitting from GW’s mistakes. By the end of the second set, VCU had just nine attack errors. GW, on the other hand, had recorded 22 attack errors.

Ault says that her team might have grown timid after VCU’s initial run in the first set. She added that her team may have let their errors get the best of them resulting, in a Colonials team that started to “second-guess” themselves on the court.

Ault said her team’s moves became predictable, making it easy for the VCU defense to adjust.

“We became very one-dimensional because we couldn’t get anyone else involved,” Ault said. “We were relying on the pins with Kelsey [Newman] and Rachael [Goss] and it made it extremely hard on them.”

VCU would record 13.5 blocks by the end of the match and were able to disrupt the Colonials’ only real source of production in the first set: the play of Newman. Despite recording five set kills, Newman would struggle in the second set of play recording eight attack errors on 13 total second set attempts.

Ault says that because her team was forced to feed Newman and Goss the ball, Newman faced difficult odds to get the ball past a VCU double block.

“I think she got more frustrated with the fact that her attacks weren’t working and there was a double block in front of her,” Ault said.  “They’re sitting in front of her and she was trying to work and drive it through the block instead of using high hand that way.”

Freshman Chidima Osuchukwu led the Colonials with 10 kills while sophomore libero Maddy Doyle led the defense with 10 digs.

The loss ends the Colonials season after they recorded their first postseason victory since 2008. GW ends their season with a 16-14 overall record.