Playing in the ECAC Championships for the first time in school history, the Lehman women’s volleyball team showed it could hang with some of Division III’s best, putting a scare into No. 2 seed Ramapo College before falling in three tough games (25-16, 26-24, 25-15) to officially end its season.

Early in the first game the Lightning could be forgiven for thinking they had seen this movie before as Michelle Ferrari, who pounded out 19 kills in their first meeting earlier this season, put away four kills among the Road Runners first eight points as Ramapo took a 9-4 lead. The Lightning answered with some attacking prowess of their own courtesy of Besa Zabelaj’s two kills and a service ace and kills by Lakeisha Gordon, Racine Brown and Gerri-Ann Martin to pull even at 10-10. But several Lehman errors later combined with contributions from a mix of Roadrunners created a 19-13 advantage that Ramapo turned into the eventual 25-16 win.

Ramapo jumped out to a commanding 11-4 lead once again to start the second game, but that’s when the action really started to heat up. Behind more outstanding play from Zabelaj (one kill, two aces) and Martin (five kills), the Lightning ran off a stunning 12-2 run to take a 16-13 lead. From that point on it was neck and neck for the remainder of the game, including four ties at 17-17, 19-19, 23-23 and 24-24. A potential momentum swinging victory in its grasp, the Lightning was turned away on kills by Maura Burke and Meagan Taege as Ramapo closed out the second game 26-24.

The third game featured Lehman challenging early as it stayed within three points as late as 10-7. However, taking advantage of what was perhaps an emotionally spent Lightning team, the Roadrunners steadily built on the lead to finish off the Lightning and end Lehman’s historic ECAC appearance.

For the Lightning, Zabelaj played one of her best statistical games of the season, recording seven kills, 16 digs and three service aces while Lehman’s usual suspects Martin (13 kills, 15 digs), Vanessa Brown (13 kills) and Lisa Jagdeo (32 assists) were solid.

Ramapo’s star, Ferrari, didn’t dominate as she did in the teams’ first meeting, but still managed to post 12 kills in the winning effort.