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INDIANAPOLIS - In a back-and-forth affair at The Jungle Tuesday evening, the IUPUI volleyball team fell to the Crusaders from Valparaiso, 3-2 (25-19, 23-25, 25-19, 23-25, 14-16).

The loss snapped IUPUI's four-match winning streak at home and dropped its record to 9-12, while Valparaiso improved to 16-4.

Moriah Fair led IUPUI with 18 kills and added 13 digs to push her over 1,000 digs for her career, while Kelly Wachtel added 17 kills en route to a .359 hitting percentage for the Jags.

"I thought we played a good match, but we just didn't push hard enough and win those crucial points that we needed to get to get over the hump," head coach Steve Payne said.

The Jaguars dominated the action in the first set winning 25-19. They never trailed and had their largest lead at 19-12. Wachtel was on fire with eight kills in 11 attempts (.727). Both teams played it close to 10-10 before Meeks set up kills for Fair and Wachtel. Wachtel and Logan Walling blocked a Kelsey Victor attack on the next point to give the Jaguars a 13-10 lead. The Crusaders got the next point before IUPUI took four more with two Wachtel kills, an error by Valparaiso's Kelsey Berrington and a Kortni Wright block to give IUPUI a 17-11 lead. IUPUI stretched the lead to 19-12 after a Meredith Farkas ace and never looked back.

The second set looked like more of the same. The Jaguars took three straight points after an 11-11 tie for a 14-11 lead. They carried the lead later into the set to 20-17, but after that it was all Crusaders. Valpo won four straight points and wouldn't trail again. Leading 24-23, Sarah Dooms finished the set off with a kill to claim the two-point win for Valparaiso.

Neither team led by more than two points in the third set until a Jaguars 9-2 run closed out a 25-19 win. Fair had three kills during the stretch and IUPUI also received two from Meeks and one from Beth Howard. Dooms ended a 7-0 run with a kill from Berrington, but Valpo only scored once more during the set.

The Jaguars kept their momentum going up 4-0 to start to the fourth set, but Valpo evened the score at 8-8 after a kill by Nicole Lambert and an error from Wright. IUPUI held a late lead, 21-19, but a Rachel Bruinsma kill sparked a 6-2 run for Valpo. Ellen Vanden Berg and Lambert teamed up on a block and Dooms got a kill for the 24th and 25th points of the set.

In the fifth set, the Jags battled back from a 12-9 deficit to take a 13-12 lead in the race to 15, but the Crusaders continued to fight and took four of the next five points to complete the 16-14 come-from-behind five-set win.

Howard led all players with a match-high 31 digs, while Wright led the front-row defense with seven total blocks.

The fifth-set defeat dropped IUPUI to 0-7 in five-set matches this season.

The Jags hit the road for two conference matches this weekend when they travel to Brookings, S.D., to take on South Dakota State on Friday, Oct. 18, before making their way to Fargo, N.D., to take on North Dakota State on Saturday, Oct. 19.