SAN ANGELO – Tarleton State dropped a five-set heartbreaker to Angelo State Friday night in the regular season finale at the Junell Center.
 
The TexAnns, who remained at No. 6 in the South Central Regional rankings last week, will enter the Lone Star Conference Championship Tournament as the No. 4 seed with a conference record of 10-6 and an overall record of 20-7. Each of the top four teams in the conference are currently ranked in the regional rankings.
 
Kaitlyn White got the scoring started for the TexAnns in the opening set, but Angelo quickly struck right back to take an early 9-4 lead.
 
A Hailey Roberts kill started an 11-4 Tarleton State run to put the TexAnns on top 15-13 in the first set. After Angelo State clawed back to take a 22-21 lead late in the set, White evened things up with a kill shot that was the first of the final four points Tarleton needed to take the opening set 25-23.
 
In the second set, Tarleton led most of the way by as few as one and as much as four with the largest lead coming at 23-19. Angelo State fought back, however, with five straight to set up a match-point at 24-23.
 
An attack error evened things up at 24-24 and the set went to extra points with Tarleton State playing behind the eight ball, never able to get into the advantage and ultimately dropping the set 26-28 on an error and an Angelo ace.
 
The teams continued to jockey for position in the third set, opening the game in a 19-19 tie over the first 38 points. Another White kill broke the tie and started a 6-1 TexAnn run down the stretch that was capped off with a Roberts kill from Chandler Gow to win the set 25-20 and take a 2-1 advantage in the match.
 
Angelo State rallied in the fourth set to take an early lead an maintain it for most of the set, leading by two as late as 23-21. A Roberts kill and a ball-handling error by Angelo State evened the set at 23-23 before the Rambelles ended the set on a Tarleton service error and a Rambelle kill to force a fifth set.
 
The Rambelles carried the momentum into the decisive set and took a slim lead from the beginning to 11-9 before the TexAnns got a kill from Kenya Alexander and a service ace from Ayssa Garcia to even the set at 11-11.
 
Angelo scored three straight after that to set up match point at 14-11 before Roberts struck for back-to-back kills to force an Angelo State timeout at 14-13 before the Rambelles got the final kill on the next point.
 
Roberts recorded her 15^th double-double of the season with a 22-kill, 18-dig performance in the loss while Emily Medlin posted her second career double-double with a team-high 30 assists and 17 digs. Alexander was one kill shy of her third double-double with nine kills and a career-high 13 blocks.
 
White and Ashley Rine added eight kills each while Gow added 23 assists of her own. The defensive duo of Katie Covell and Garcia combined for 46 digs in the game. Covell totaled a team-best 28 while Garcia recorded a career-high 18.
 
The TexAnns will head to Canyon next weekend for the Lone Star Conference Championship Tournament for the 10^th time in school history and the eighth time in Mary Schindler's 10-year tenure. The anticipated first-round match up will be against No. 5 seeded Texas A&M-Kingsville.