Box Score COLUMBIA, Mo. - Opening American Midwest Conference play at reigning AMC Tournament champion, No. 25 Columbia College (8-8, 1-0 AMC), William Woods (10-8, 0-1) led throughout the second set but wound up falling 3-1 (25-20, 18-25, 25-21, 25-12) to the Cougars Tuesday at Arena of Southwell Complex.

The Owls had outstanding performances regardless of the result, with Erin Treis notching her 10th double-double this season (co-team-high 17 assists, added 14 digs) and Andressa M. Borges putting down her most kills for WWU with a team-high 11 while going up for a co-team-high four blocks. Pamela Durazo hit a match-high .529 and tied Borges for the team lead in blocks, Madelyn Ashton joined Treis in guiding Woods' defense, pulling down a team-high 16 digs and Juliana Neves partnered with Treis in commanding the Owls' support, with a co-team-high 17 assists.

William Woods tallied 46 kills while hitting .145, 58 digs, 40 assists, nine blocks and no aces, and Columbia had 50 kills while hitting .178, 63 digs, 49 assists, 10 blocks and four aces.

In the first set, the Owls led by as many as three points, but the Cougars' 5-0 and 4-0 runs toward the end allowed the hosts to take it by five points. Vitoria Campos Mello gave Woods its first lead of the set at 2-1, and she recorded three kills and one assist. Lauren Adams also did well in set one for the Owls, going up for all three of her blocks in the contest.

"This is a hard loss, we came out to do some big things and from the start of set one, we pushed hard to do our jobs," William Woods volleyball coach Kandace Cook said. "We stayed neck and neck til somewhere around 16-17 points, and then we found ourselves in a hiccup and then found our way back a little too late."

During the second set, Woods never trailed and led by as much as seven points twice at 22-15 and 25-18. Durazo went on a tear in set two, registering half of her 10 kills and adding a block, and so did Luciana Paiva Pereira with three kills - back-to-back kills for her first two and set-point for her last one. Treis provided the Owls' two successive kills to end the set, finishing it with four assists.

"We came out in set 2 knowing that it wasn't over, and promptly took the set away from CC having a chance at it," Cook said.

Columbia turned it around in the third set, as it didn't let William Woods go in front. The Cougars led by as much as nine points twice at 17-8 and 20-11. Not going down without a fight, the Owls went on a 7-0 run to cut their deficit to 20-18, with Borges recording two of her four kills and Neves two of her 12 assists in the set.

"A slow start in set 3 had us all out of sorts, and we struggled to get back into the swing of things again until the end of the game," Cook said.

Even though a trio of Brazilians had a solid fourth set for William Woods, Borges notched four kills, Paiva Pereira three kills and Campos Mello two kills and an assist, the Owls couldn't go on top as they dropped their AMC opener to their ranked rival.

"It's not a game that we want to lose because I do think that we have the potential to do more," Cook said. "But our errors got the best of us today. The 4th set was a hard one to swallow, but we will move forward and learn from our mistakes, and take on the rest of conference using this as an opportunity to grow.

"We hoped to start off conference play with a win, although we didn't. We are excited to see CC again come conference tournament play."

William Woods will look to turn it around when it faces another AMC opponent in Columbia, Stephens College (4-11, 1-0 AMC), at 6 p.m. Thursday at Silverthorne Arena.