ST. LOUIS – Fourth-seeded George Washington won a tightly contested third set to spur a victory in the Atlantic 10 Volleyball Championship quarterfinals, 3-1, over No. 5 Saint Louis Friday afternoon at Chaifetz Pavilion.
 
GW (18-14) advances to face No. 1 Loyola Chicago in Saturday’s semifinals at 2:00 pm ET / 1:00 pm CT.
 
The Colonials won 25-19, 23-25, 27-25 and 25-17 to secure the four-set victory. But it was the tight third set that was the key win.  The teams had each secured a set earlier, so tied at one, the third set was a dead-even heat. Tied at 23, GW had-back-to-back set points that SLU survived to push the battle to 25 points each. But a Brittany Myers kill followed by a Billiken attack error gave the set to the Colonials. GW took the fourth set slowly building a lead that it never relinquished.
 
GW had three player record double-digit kills, including a monster match from Liv Womble, who hit .556 and had a match-high 20 kills. Salem Yohannes had a 15-kill, 12-dig double-double and MC Daubendiek notched 12 kills while hitting .407. Bella Bowman had a match-high 24 digs and Tierra Porter had nine blocks to lead all defenders.
 
Each team dominated one of the first two sets. GW came out hot at the start of the match and took a quick 4-0 lead on back-to-back kills by Myers and Womble. The lead got as high as 10, as the Colonials built too big of a lead for Saint Louis to recover.
 
But it was the Billikens (18-13)  in the second set that came out hot. A Carlie Rodgers ace gave Saint Louis a 6-0 lead. GW fought back to tie the set at 17 on a Womble kill. And the teams traded points until a Irmak Gokcen kill and a GW attack error tied the game for the Billikens.
 
Jillian Mattingly record 11 kills and hit .370 to lead the Billikens. Kayla Richardson added 10 kills. Mattingly and Delaney Rice each had five blocks and Rodgers tallied 18 digs.