AURORA, Ill. – Katie Vondra piled up 27 kills and Aurora University turned around a pivotal third set with a big run and went on to end Lakeland University's season in four sets Thursday night in the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference Women's Volleyball Tournament semifinals.

Top seed Aurora finished with a 25-13, 27-29, 25-19, 25-18 victory to advance to the conference tournament final Sunday. The Spartans will host second-seeded Concordia University Wisconsin, which swept No. 3 seed Dominican University in three sets in the other semifinal Thursday night.

The Muskies concluded the season with a 22-11 record, their most successful season since finishing 23-13 and winning the NACC Tournament in 2009 to advance to the NCAA Division III Tournament. Lakeland wound up two steps short of that feat this year after bowing to a powerful Aurora team for the second time this season.

The Muskies were not at their best on the attack, hitting .055 for the match with 29 kills and 20 errors. In contrast, the Spartans (22-8 overall) received a dynamite performance from Vondra, who was named the NACC Player of the Year earlier in the day and set a season high for kills while hitting .350. Lindsey Simpson also added 14 kills, and together the two surpassed Lakeland kills total as a team.

Despite the dominance of both, the Muskies still sat in excellent position past the halfway point of the third set. Lakeland pulled out a tense second set that included 11 ties and the Spartans reaching a set point at 26-25, and the Muskies got a jump in the third set too and led 14-9 after a kill by Shannon Bishop (Jr.-River Grove, Ill.).

Aurora started to chip away and then picked up steam, scoring six straight points to take a 19-16 lead. Lakeland stemmed the tide briefly, but the Spartans scored four more in a row and finished the set on a 12-3 run to go ahead 2-1 in the match.

Lakeland was unable to recover in the fourth set as Aurora built an 11-4 lead and never trailed the rest of the way. The Muskies crawled back as close as 17-14 after a service ace by Natalie Bova (Jr.-Chicago, Ill.) and again at 18-15 after a kill by Bishop, but Vondra finished with eight kills in the set and closed it out with her 27th kill of the match, two off her career high.

Bishop led Lakeland with nine kills and Shelby Welsh (Sr.-Ogallala, Neb.) added seven kills. Bishop also added 16 digs and Welsh 13 digs, two of the five Muskies in double figures in digs. Emma Bruder (Sr.-Frankfort, Ill.) led that group with 20 digs, finishing the season with exactly 500 digs to become just the third different player in school history to reach that milestone in a season.

Neenah Primas (So.-Oostburg, Wis.) finished with 25 assists and 13 digs and senior Brianna Johnson (Altoona, Wis.) also added 12 digs. Megan Goeser (So.-Plymouth, Wis.) also finished with four blocks (three solo, one assisted) as the Muskies totaled eight blocks as a team.

The match was the final one for five seniors, including Bruder, Johnson, Welsh, Eliana Arbetman (Oak Park, Ill.) and Emilie Schartner (Sr.-Sturgeon Bay, Wis.).