With some breaks here and there, and perhaps an error or two avoided along the way, it might have been St. Mary’s celebrating a hard-fought home-court victory over longtime Tri-Peaks League rival Colorado Springs Christian School on Tuesday.

But even in defeat, playing in five up-and-down sets surely beat the alternative.

“We showed up this time,” said St. Mary’s coach Chris Sweeney, who watched his Pirates fall, 22-25, 25-20, 25-19, 18-25, 15-12. “We got our butts kicked the last few times against them. Getting the lead was good. It showed them we were going to have to be reckoned with.”

One night after outlasting Rampart in a five-set thriller, CSCS, the top-ranked 3A/2A squad in the Pikes Peak region, quickly fell behind, realizing this match wouldn’t be a sweep as the previous five encounters went.

“They have a lot of seniors, and they stepped up a lot,” CSCS senior Bailey Scott said. “We expected it to be a fight, but we did not expect it to be that hard. We’re all exhausted. We were tired after the Rampart match, but this was the big one and we wanted to win the league match so much more.”

CSCS (11-3, 6-0) rebounded to even the match, then surged ahead to win the third set, getting five aces and scoring nine points off Pirates errors.

Pikes Peak 3A/2A No. 2 St. Mary’s (10-3, 4-2) tightened things up in the fourth set, scoring five of the first six points and never trailing, then the schools went to a 15-point fifth set for the first time since Oct. 22, 2011.

CSCS won that match too in similar fashion by also dropping the opener and winning two before being forced to the limit.

In the deciding set, Cassie Davis registered an ace and kill to put the Lions ahead 3-1, but the Pirates scored the next three points. Then the squads traded lead changes twice and played through six ties until Scott’s kill put CSCS ahead to stay, 13-12.

The Lions scored the final two points off errors to escape and run their winning streak to six.

“We worked our tails off, and it’s not the W we wanted, but we still worked hard,” St. Mary’s senior Brighid Heaney said. “This is an incredible confidence booster because we see what happens when we’re on our game and playing as a team. When we work hard, we can get what we need.”