PORTLAND -- The Eastern Oregon University volleyball team were on the wrong side of a rally Friday night falling to Concordia in a five-game thriller, 3-2.

Concordia jumped out to an early lead in the first game before the Mountaineers made a rally and took a 24-23 lead before giving up two straight points and eventually losing, 27-25. Game 2 went EOU's way pretty easily, 25-16. The Mountaineers led throughout the third game and won, 25-20.

Eastern appeared to have the match in hand leading 21-18 in the fourth game, but the Cavaliers went on a 7-0 run and won the game, 25-21. Despite the momentum clearly in Concordia's favor, EOU took a 9-2 lead to begin Game 5. The Cavaliers got back into the game with a 5-0 run but seemed to be done with the Mountaineers at match point leading, 14-11.

Concordia went on a 3-0 to tie the game before Eastern's Julie Butterfield scored a kill to give the Mountaineers match point again. But another 3-0 run by the Cavaliers clinched the victory, 17-15.

"It was a tough loss for us and one that we are going to want back," EOU head coach Kaki Morehead said. "We needed to finish and couldn't pull it off when needed. Hopefully we can learn something from this and use it to our advantage."

Eastern Oregon will try and shake off the difficult set back and stay in the Rose City for Saturday's match against Warner Pacific College at 7 p.m.