WALLA WALLA, Wash.  In attempting to do again what no one else in the Northwest Conference has done even once, Whitman was ever-so-slightly late to its own party.

Perhaps, in a best-of-seven or best-of-nine format, the Blues could have continued building momentum and swept the season series against first-place Pacific Lutheran University.

Whitman ran out of comeback runway against the potent Lutes, who avenged their only loss of the season -- a 3-2 setback against the Blues on Sept. 16 -- by winning 25-12, 25-21, 26-24 Saturday at Sherwood Athletic Center.

The Blues (5-10, 5-5 in NWC) picked themselves up off the mat after a sluggish first set and hard-fought second-set loss to reach set point in the third, but were turned away by the prodigious firepower of PLU, which had 42 kills to Whitman's 30 and 18 blocks to the host's 12.

"When you're playing against great teams, you've got to capitalize," Blues head coach Matt Helm said. "They had a little extra motivation. The lesson for us is how to match that kind of intensity in a big game."

Codie Conching paced Whitman with 11 kills and added eight digs. Anna Dawson dished 23 assists and scraped 16 digs. Cherokee Washington added 18 digs and two aces, and Megan Henry chipped in seven kills and a team-high five block assists.

Collectively, Whitman was at its best in the third set. An early back-and-forth parlay yielded to the Conching Show midway through; the 5-foot-6 junior from Honolulu skied for consecutive kills to ignite a 7-0 run punctuated by Brooke Randall's stuff block. First-year Sierra Myers' tricky jump serve initiated the last six points of the burst.

There were ties at 17-, 18- and 23-all, with Whitman leads of 20-18, 21-19, 22-20 and 23-21 in between as the Blues dug in to try and force a fourth set. Whitman was one point away after Conching's kill made it 24-23.

"After the first two sets, we weren't playing our best," said Helm. "In the third set, we were battling throughout. We had a chance to close them out."

But the Lutes (15-3, 9-1 in NWC) are alone in first place for a reason. They scored the next three points.

The first-set highlights were sparse for Whitman. Aside from a bright start -- Henry's match-opening kill and a Lara Temel ace helping the Blues to a 3-0 lead -- the Lutes were in control. Pacific Lutheran scored 10 unanswered points and 14 of 15 in seizing a 14-4 lead.

Whitman briefly found its bearings, as a pair of Myers kills, a combined stuff block by Dawson and Temel, and a Washington ace fueled a 5-1 spurt that made it 15-9, PLU. But the Lutes scored six unanswered points and cruised to victory.

The Blues were more organized and dangerous -- more themselves -- in a second set that could have fallen either way. In tune with her passers, Dawson dosed the Lutes with Henry (five kills), Randall (two kills), Conching (two) and Dickey (two). Randall added two blocks to help fissure PLU's net hegemony.

Whitman hosts Whitworth at 6 p.m. on Wednesday.