RICHMOND, Va. – Loyola Chicago won its third Atlantic 10 Volleyball Championship with a 3-2 (27-25, 25-27, 25-27, 25-21, 15-12) five-set thriller Sunday at the Siegel Center.

The Ramblers (17-15) earn the Atlantic 10’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. It's the third title for LUC which has played in the championship match in each of Loyola Chicago's first four years in the A-10.

Kaitlyn Burke registered 20 kills while Karli Molnau had 19 and Ann Marie Remmes finished with 17 kills and hit an impressive.593 for the match. Remmes was named the Championship’s Most Outstanding Player, while Burke, who had 11 digs for her second double-double of the championship, joined Remmes on the All-Championship Team.

Sets one, two and three were all battles with neither team ever gaining an advantage of more than four in either set and all three seeing the winning team reach 27 points. At the end of the first set, VCU was down two, but scored five of the next six points on a trio of kills by Alicja Jaryszek to take the set.

In the second set, Loyola looked like it might have the win, but a replay overturned the play on the floor and tied the score at 25. But the Ramblers were determined and ripped off a point on a kill by Avary DeBlieck and a set-ended ace by Sam Falk.
The third set finished with three straight VCU points, first on a block by Letizia Galli and Jaryszek and the final point on a kill from Jaryszek. Jaryszek and Julia Reinks tallied 21 and 17 kills respectively for the Rams, both earning All-Championship nods. Kalina Pylinska also had 15 kills and 12 digs for a double-double.

Loyola took a close set four and gained an advantage with a 4-0 run midway through and then closed out the set with three of the final four points, with kills from Burke, and Leyna Nguyen and a solo block form DeBlieck.

The decisive fifth set tilted in the Ramblers’ favor with a 5-1 run, spurred by a pair of kills from Nguyen, who also had a team-high 13 digs. From there, the teams traded points, but that five-point lead LUC built at 10-5 was too much to overcome and kills from Burke and Molnau finished the match.

Hakura Sugimoto led the match with 21 digs, and DeBlieck had a match-high eight blocks. Nina Boledovicova led VCU (16-13) with six blocks.

Loyola Chicago setter Emma Henry, who had 115 assists in the Ramblers two matches, joined Remmes and Burke on the All-Championship team, as did Dayton’s Kamryn Hunt and Duquesne’s Emerson Schrom.