OMAHA, Neb. – Things just did not go in College of Saint Mary's favor Friday night.

The Flames lost a tough Great Plains Athletic Conference contest 3-0 to Northwestern College. The Raiders won by scores of 25-23, 26-24 and 25-17.

The loss is the fourth straight for the Flames, who are in the midst of perhaps the toughest stretch of matches in NAIA play. CSM has five straight contests against ranked opponents.

The Flames (ranked No. 18 in the NAIA) drop to 3-4 in the GPAC and 13-4 overall. Northwestern (ranked No. 7) improves to 4-3, 13-4. Things don't get any easier for CSM as No. 12-ranked Dordt University comes to town Saturday.

"This is a tough loss," CSM Coach Rick Pruett said. "I thought that there were moments that we really battled."

Northwestern had control for most of the first set. But the Flames closed the gap late in the set. Then, in the second set, momentum shifted and CSM was in the driver's seat. After being tied at 17-17, the Flames got big kills from Grace Werner (SO/Omaha, Neb.), Makenna Freeman (SR/Omaha, Neb.) and Lexie Langley (JR/Fremont, Neb.) to go ahead 20-17.

There was some back-and-forth play before a long-debated call went in Northwestern's favor, there was a net violation and a ball-handling error call that awarded the set to the Raiders.

CSM struggled to respond and fell behind 5-0 to open the third set before eventually losing 25-17.

"It could've been a whole different match if we had won that second set," Pruett said. "And we didn't respond well to open the third set.

"In the end we scored as many points offensively, we just had 19 hitting errors, five missed serves at crucial times and nine reception errors. We're scoring too many points for the opposing team."

Langley led CSM with 12 kills, while Werner finished with nine and Freeman had seven. Setter Lauren Anderson (JR/Gretna, Neb.) tallied 34 assists. Langley added 17 digs and teammate Rachel Cushing (JR/Council Bluffs, Iowa) finished with 16.

CSM plays host to the Defenders Saturday with junior varsity slated for 3:30 p.m. and varsity at 5 p.m.

*In junior varsity action Friday, Northwestern won 2-1.