BERKELEY — In the end it all came down to confidence, or lack thereof.

Sacramento State volleyball appeared to have that confidence in the first game of its 3-1, (26-30, 30-27, 30-22, 30-17) loss to 10th-seeded St. Mary’s in Thursday night the NCAA first roundt.

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 coach Debby Colberg said.

Sac State (25-8) took the first game from the Gaels (24-3) by a score of 30-26 while hitting for a .314 clip. Despite the win though, the Hornets eventually succumbed to frustration at the hands of a scrappy but equally talented Gaels squad.

The contest Thursday night was a rematch of Sept. 21 when St. Mary’s came to Sacramento and escaped with a 3-2 victory. The two teams combined for 213 digs in that match.

“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,” sophomore Atlee Hubbard, who had a team-high 15 kills, 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 attack error to give St. Mary’s a lead they would not relinquish, taking advantage of three more Hornet errors and a kill from freshman Melissa 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,” said St. Mary’s senior opposite Lindsey Bogason, who had 12 kills to accompany a .355 clip.

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 in that span.

“It wasn’t nerves, it’s just when one person loses confidence it tends to rub off on the rest of the team,” said senior middle hitter Emily Wilson who had 11 kills in her final match as a Hornet.

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 tonight happened to the whole team as well,” Colberg said.

The Gaels never looked back in the final two games winning by scores of 30-22 and 30-17, respectively, hitting .319 in those 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,” St. Mary’s coach Jon Stevenson said.

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 suiting up in the Green and Gold.

“This is disappointing. We’re okay with it if we go out and play our 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.”

NOTES: Sophomore libero Kristin Lutes, playing in just her third match since coming back from a broken knuckle had a career-high 36 digs. Junior middle hitter Shannon Arts had her best match of the season with 11 kills, a .381 hitting percentage and seven blocks.