St. Ambrose erased sizable leads in both the first and third sets to take leads late in both, but came up empty in a 26-24, 25-14, 25-22 loss at Governors State Thursday night.

The Bees trailed 22-17 in the opener.

Kills from Michael Bos and Kam Dixon and an ace from Ethan Karban trimmed the deficit to 22-20 and forced a Jaguar timeout. After a GSU point, Dixon put down another kill. Then a pair of Jaguar hitting errors sandwiched around a Dixon and Charlie Flynn block gave the Bees a set point at 24-23.

But Governors State (16-10, 10-2 CCAC) immediately stole back momentum, winning the next three points to take the set.

The second set saw GSU put down 14 kills against just four hitting errors while St. Ambrose (19-10, 8-5 CCAC) finished with nine kills and seven errors. A 6-1 run allowed the Jaguars to turn a 15-13 lead into a 21-14 advantage en route to a two-set lead.

The Bees then watched the Jaguars race out to a 6-0 lead to start the third.

SAU chipped away to get within 15-12. Then kills from Flynn and Pedro Zang, and a block from Zang and Bos, combined with two Governors State hitting errors, put the Bees in front 17-15.

Moments later, Zang had a kill and Bos and Anthony Anderson teamed for a block for a 21-19 lead. But SAU just couldn't hold on.

GSU won the next four points and after a Bos kill cut the margin to 23-22, the Jaguars won back-to-back points to wrap up the three-set victory.

Zang led St. Ambrose with nine kills. Bos collected seven, Flynn finished with six and Dixon ended with five. Jon Guch added two kills and Ian Cordes and Kainalu Ka'ahanui had one each.

Anderson had a team-best 17 assists. Karban was credited with six and Felipe Prieto picked up four.

Karban recorded dix digs. Anderson and Ka'ahanui each had five while Zang, Dixon, Prieto and Cole Rubio came up with four each.

SAU will close the regular season Tuesday at home on Senior Night against Olivet Nazarene with third place in the CCAC on the line.