AZUSA, Calif. – The Northwest Nazarene women's volleyball team couldn't get over the hump Thursday, dropping its fifth consecutive match to open the season.

The Nighthawks lost in five sets to Sonoma State 18-25, 25-20, 17-25, 29-27, 15-8 at the West Region Showcase at Azusa Pacific.

NNU had three match points in the fourth set but couldn't get the finishing shot.

"At the end of set four, Cami (Heninger) and Abbey (Blum) had some big swings and we almost pulled it out," NNU coach Doug English said. "Set five, we got down early and made a lot of errors. That is us trying to grow up and figure out how to be good when it matters."

The Nighthawks (0-5) split the first two sets before rolling in the third set. In the fourth set, they trailed throughout and eventually were behind 24-23, but a service error and a kill by Blum put NNU on top 25-24. After a Sonoma kill to tie it up, Blum had another kill for a 26-25 lead.

Blum then had a hitting error to tie it up at 26-26, before she had another kill for a 27-26 lead.

Things went downhill from there as Blum had a service error, Sonoma had a kill and then Heninger had a hitting error to give Sonoma the set.

In the deciding fifth set, Sonoma jumped out to a 7-1 lead before NNU pulled within 7-4. The Nighthawks didn't get any closer and eventually dropped their third five-set match of the young season.

"We've been so close three of the last four matches. It's hard not to get down," English said. "We are trying to trust the same things we stress every day. It doesn't matter if we are winning or losing, we're trying to get better."

Heninger finished with 16 kills and 15 digs and a .279 hitting percentage. Blum added 12 kills and Tayler Markland seven. Kayla Sale had 22 digs and Shayli Siegfreid had 25, while Megan Nelson had 20 assists and Mckenzie Lee had 17.

NNU is back in action at Azusa Pacific at 6:30 p.m. MDT on Friday against Cal State San Bernardino.