For two games, the Salem High School girls volleyball team played like two-time defending state champions.

It was the other three games against Spaulding that proved to be the problem for the Blue Devils, who were eliminated, 22-25, 19-25, 25-20, 25-23 and 10-15.

After falling behind 2-0 in the Division I semifinal match on Nov. 5, Salem climbed back to force a decisive fifth game, but Spaulding won the final game to end the Blue Devils’ hopes for a third consecutive title.

Salem’s head coach, Dan Young, said his team’s comeback from a 2-0 deficit was one of the reasons the Blue Devils came up short in the fifth game.

“They didn’t want their season to end like that,” said Young. “I think the emotion (of the comeback) left us a little drained at the end.”

After dropping a closely contested first game in the match, Salem looked flat in the early stages of the second game, trailing by as many as 13 to fall behind 2-0.

Spaulding, which handed Salem one of its two regular-season losses in October, appeared to be cruising to a straight-set win, taking an 18-15 lead in the third game.

But the Blue Devils, led by strong net play from Amanda Saab, won the game after Young made a switch in his rotational strategy.

“After the second game, I realized that I wasn’t going to lose with Amanda Saab on the bench,” said Young. “She’s known as a basketball player, but she’s really turned herself into a volleyball player.”

Saab finished the evening with five blocks and a team-high 18 kills to help get her team back in the match.

Salem lost its 19-13 lead in the fourth game, as Spaulding stormed back to tie the score at 23-23, but after the Blue Devils won a lengthy point to take a one-point lead, Becca Weiss notched a kill to force the deciding game.

Though the teams traded points throughout the early part of the fifth game, Spaulding pulled away for the win and went on to defeat top-seeded Pinkerton Academy to take the D-I title.

“We gave them a few too many chances,” said Young, who said the previous years in the finals weren’t a factor this year. “Every group is new. The experience is what you make it, and we were a different team then.”

Sophomore setter Sarah Scott, who transferred to Salem this year from Wisconsin, racked up 47 assists in the losing cause for the Blue Devils, who will likely be expected to go deep in the postseason again next year.

“This senior class taught the younger players a lot,” said Young, whose team graduates five seniors. “We’re not going anywhere.”