Weber State won two extended sets, one of them an ultra marathon. UTEP erased a big deficit in the first set.

And in the end, the careers of Rylin Adams, Ashlyn Power and Sam Schiess ended after five sets as an upstart UTEP squad stormed its home court late Tuesday night in El Paso, Texas.

The Miners (24-7) will play in the NIVC semifinals on their home court after defeating the Wildcats 25-21, 26-28, 25-23, 34-36, 15-9 in three hours. The El Paso Times reports UTEP’s Memorial Gym had 2,099 fans in attendance.

The Weber State (22-10) senior trio finishes with five postseason wins in the last three seasons, two straight Big Sky regular-season championships, and the program’s first-ever NCAA Tournament win. Power sits well atop the WSU career leaderboard in assists, and Adams and Schiess are easily top three in kills and hitting percentage, respectively.

The first set may be the toughest to swallow for Weber State, which led 14-6 and also at 21-16. At that last margin, UTEP scored nine straight points to win the set 25-21.

WSU almost went down 2-0 with UTEP at a 24-22 set point. Adams got a kill to make it 24-23, then graduating setter Emily Olson served consecutive aces to put Weber up 25-24. Adams would deliver set point with an ace at 28-26.

Adams finished with 22 kills and six aces. Weber State served 15 aces as a team.

That ultimately helped WSU avoid a sweep. A timely challenge and an overturned point helped the Wildcats rally late to a 22-21 lead in set three after an ace from Dani Nay and a kill from Baylee Bodily. But UTEP answered with three straight points to take the set.

That’s when a very competitive match turned wildly thrilling.

Weber State started the fourth set with leads of 13-5 and 16-9. But UTEP got a block to make it 16-10 and turned the serve to Serena Patterson. She served the Miners to six straight points, including two aces, to tie it 16-16 and ended the match with 11 kills and six aces.

WSU still claimed a lead as late as 22-19 before UTEP got its first match point at 24-23. The teams went back and forth, though Weber hit service errors on three tied scores from 25-25 to 28-28 to help the Miners.

WSU head coach Jeremiah Larsen scored another big challenge when a swing from Sam Schiess went out. Larsen challenged that the Miners had touched it, the review agreed, and Weber went up 33-32. But UTEP got its seventh match point at 34-33 before Nay delivered a big, swinging kill and then a tip kill to get Weber to its third set point. Mikalya Sorensen got the tally at that point for a 36-34 set win.

The big set win that gave Weber new life quickly went out the window when UTEP went up 8-2 in the fifth set on an ace. The Wildcats fought back to 11-9 when Adams swung her final kill from the back row, and WSU’s final point of the season, before they ran out of gas. UTEP did not need seven match points to complete it at 15-9.

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