In a hostile environment, playing against a conference opponent for the first time this season, the Jayhawks played a thriller of a match. They just weren’t too thrilled with the ending.

Kansas fell to Colorado Wednesday night in five sets, losing the fifth set 15-12, after leading 11-9 at one point. It’s a heartbreaking loss that hopefully coach Ray Bechard can find some positives and gt ready for an even more formidable Iowa State team on Saturday.

“If you were a neutral observer you saw a really great match,” Bechard said. “We had a swing to win the match in game four, and we’re up 11-9 in game five, and Colorado made the plays and we didn’t.”

The Jayhawks fought valiantly all night, even after coming out so flat for the opening set, falling down early 3-0, before craving the deficit to one at 10-9 but that was the closest they came after that first set, losing 25-18.

“It wasn’t really anything they were doing in the first set,” Bechard said. “We had eight hitting errors and they had one and we lost by seven points.”

But the Jayhawks could have rolled over after the disappointing first set, and later falling behind 0-2 at the start of set two, but their persistence showed, and even more so after Kansas was down six with a score of 12-18 and starting a two game match deficit.

But after finishing set two strong in thrilling fashion 28-26, the Jayhawks continued the momentum with a commanding 25-15 set three win, and had a chance for the match point with the score 24-23 in set four.

“We had a swing up 24-23, ball on our side of the net, and it just didn’t work out,” Bechard said, noting freshmen outside hitter Allyson Mayfield’s late hitting error.

Then it was a gut wrenching game five that saw the Jayhawks up 11-9, but then errors and mistakes plagued them for the rest of the set, and for the entire match

“Even though we had some leads, they (Colorado) blocked a couple of balls and scored some easy points,” Bechard said. “We got a little disorganized toward the end of that game.”

Sophomore outside hitter Karina Garlington, a Colorado native, once again set a career high in kills, this time with 24. Garlington however, who also set a career high in kills last season in Boulder, only cares about one stat: wins.

“I mean I played ok,” Garlington said. “But 24 kills or two kills, it really doesn’t matter unless we win the match, so I can’t be too pleased.”

Although there isn’t much to be pleased about in general after a loss like this, Bechard pointed toward the positives and said his team will not let this loss carry over into the Iowa State match Saturday afternoon.

“There’s many positives we’ll take from it,” Bechard said. “There will be no hangover from this physically or mentally tomorrow, we’ll get right back to work.”

With 32 hitting errors the Jayhawks will be looking forward to working out these problems before Saturday’s match, knowing what the game could have been without the mistakes.

“You come out a little better in game one,” Bechard said. “And maybe you have an opportunity to close it out in three.”

Closing out opponents won’t be easy in the conference this year, and finishing is an important tool that Bechard will hope his team picks up over the course of the rest of the season.

“It’s going to be typical of how this conference is going to go,” Bechard said. “When you have a chance to put your foot on somebody’s throat, you better do it.”

— — Edited by Arthur Hur