BERKELEY — This is not how Sacramento State volleyball wanted to go out.

After receiving their most favorable seeding in five years in the NCAA Tournament the Hornets had high hopes entering their match with 10th-seeded St. Mary’s and had a vote of confidence considering they had almost beaten the Gaels earlier in the season.

The Hornets appeared to have that confidence in the first game of their 3-1, (26-30, 30-27, 30-22, 30-17) loss in the NCAA first round Thursday night.

But confidence can be a funny thing, one minute it’s there, the next minute it disappears in the vapor trail of an opponent’s spike.

“There’s no doubt that we just lost our composure tonight,” Sac State head coach Debby Colberg said.

Sac State (25-8) took the first game from the Gaels (24-3) by a score of 30-26 overcoming several early deficits and finally putting the game away on an Atlee Hubbard kill, one of six for the sophomore outside hitter in the first game, as she would finish with a team-high 15.

Down 16-5 midway through the opening frame the Hornets had already committed six errors to the Gaels three. But Sac State closed with a fury, not committing another error down the stretch to close on a 15-10 run despite some shaky serving.

The two teams, so similar that they even sport the same shoes and uniform styles, traded roles in game two and it was the Gaels erasing a 19-16 deficit and taking a brief lead after Atlee Hubbard capped off a string of Hornet errors, giving St. Mary’s a 20-19 advantage.

“It’s frustrating to know you have to take a bunch of swings to get one down on that team, but you have to stay mentally tough,” Hubbard said.

Still very much in control with the score tied at 25 in the second game, sophomore outside hitter Shannon Roland couldn’t find daylight in a Gael block and committed an error to give St. Mary’s a lead they would not relinquish, taking advantage of three more Hornet errors and a kill from Stidham to take a split – and momentum – into the intermission.

“There was a sense of urgency, we knew we needed it for our confidence to go into the locker room having won that game,” St. Mary’s senior opposite Lindsey Bogason said.

After taking that 19-16 lead in the second frame, the Hornets committed eight attack errors versus just four kills while St. Mary’s committed just three errors in that span.

Though Sac State held a pair of early leads in games three and four its confidence was clearly shaken.

“It wasn’t nerves, it’s just when one person loses confidence it tends to rub off on the rest of the team,” senior middle hitter Emily Wilson said.

Senior outside hitter and team captain Sandra Bandimere, who has been the Hornets catalyst all season long, managed just three kills and a -.100 hitting percentage through the first two games committing six attack errors and two service errors.

“Whatever happened to Sandra happened to the whole team as well,” Colberg said.

Sac State came out of the locker room at the intermission and managed to scrape together a 9-7 edge early, but Kaui Salzman and Cassandra Kolkka quickly doused any hope of a Hornet victory as Salzman served out four straight points, three of which came on consecutive Kolkka kills.

From there the Gaels never looked back in that game or the match taking the final two games by scores of 30-22 and 30-17, respectively, hitting .319 in the final two games to close out the Hornets.

“This team has shown that it has another gear they go into when we need it, you saw a little bit of that in games three and four,” Stevenson said.

The Gaels move on to face California tonight at 7 p.m. The Golden Bears won their opening round match over Pacific 3-1 after dropping the first game as well. The winner of tonight’s contest advances to the Sweet Sixteen in the Seattle region.

For the Hornets last night marked their third consecutive first round exit, the previous two coming at Stanford in 2002 and 2003. Sac State has won just one NCAA Tournament game, that coming in 1997 when the Hornets swept Houston in the first round with the likes of Maureen Rafferty and Carissa Buie in the Green and Gold.

“This is disappointing. You’re okay with it if you go out and play your best and don’t win,” Colberg said. “We’re not okay with this one because we know we didn’t play our A-game and we needed to.”