KU senior Caitlin Mahoney (11) dives to the floor for a dig during her last home match against Iowa State on Saturday at Horejsi Family Athletics Center.

KU volleyball seniors Caitlin Mahoney, (11), left, and Emily Brown (7), bottom right, compete in their last home game against Iowa State, Saturday, Nov. 17, 2007.

For the past four years, Emily Brown has served as the face of the Kansas University volleyball program.

Brown’s dream of playing at KU – which she said had lingered since third grade – officially will come to a close Wednesday at Texas Tech. Saturday, Brown played her final match at KU’s Horejsi Family Athletics Center.

Unfortunately for her, it wasn’t a fairy-tale ending at home for the senior from Baldwin City. The Jayhawks lost to Iowa State in five games (20-30, 30-24, 25-30, 30-26, 27-15).

“It won’t hit me until later that, ‘Hey, I’m really done,'” Brown said. “It’s definitely in the back of your mind. This has just been such a great place to play, and it’s a good atmosphere here, and it’s always a packed house. It’s something I’m really going to miss.”

Brown recorded yet another triple-double – her eighth of the season – on Senior Day, with 15 kills, 29 assists and 13 digs to go with six blocks and three aces.

In her four years, Brown has established herself to be one of the best players in program history. She will finish in the top 10 in assists, aces, digs and solo blocks. She cracked the top five in kills and games played.

“I knew toward the end of her high school career and just watching her in club volleyball, I knew she could come up here and play,” said Jill Brown, Emily’s mother who was also her high school volleyball coach. “But I probably never would have thought she would have done as much as she did.”

Emily didn’t always plan on playing volleyball following high school. During her senior speech Saturday, she said she thought basketball would be the sport she would pursue.

Brown’s decision to stick with volleyball was not only significant for the Kansas program, but also for her family.

“I have three sisters that all played volleyball, so from my three sisters and my folks we all grew up pretty heavy in volleyball,” Jill Brown said. “I think everybody was thrilled. To be honest, I think we were all thrilled when it was volleyball just because it’s kind of a deep family thing that everybody’s played and very familiar with it.”

Brown wasn’t the only senior bidding farewell on Saturday. Caitlin Mahoney, who had to red-shirt her freshman year because of an injury, collected a career-high 13 kills in her home finale.

“Mahoney had her best match as a Jayhawk – how cool is that?” KU coach Ray Bechard said. “But we desperately wanted this to be a match the two seniors could really remember in a fond way at a standpoint of being really successful.”

Even with the solid performance from their seniors – while also getting 15 kills from freshman Jenna Kaiser – the Jayhawks let late leads in both Game 4 and Game 5 slip away after they had never trailed in the third game of the match.

“Everyone was all pumped up, and we were ready to win,” Mahoney said. “We knew we were going to fight today, but things didn’t turn out too well, I guess. But we did fight until the end, so there was definitely passion out there today.”