Despite a strong start in winning the opening set, John Carroll fell in four to the Ohio Northern Polar Bears Saturday in Ada in the conference opener for both teams.

JCU trailed 23-21 in game one and faced game point at 24-23, but survived to pull out the opening set win, 27-25. Sarah Orlandi and Leah Switalski both had two kills in the late stages to pull out the win.

From there, however, Ohio Northern would not be denied. The Polar Bears won the next three games, 25-19, 25-22 and 25-15.

It was a familiar finish for John Carroll as it was the 18th consecutive win for Ohio Northern in the series dating back to the Blue Streaks last win in 2001.

Orlandi ended the match with 16 kills, while Switalski had 11 and Kit O'Shaughnessy had 10 kills to go with 47 assists.

Sara Kaminski had a team-high 32 digs for John Carroll, which fell to 8-10 overall and 0-1 in the OAC.