Pin hitters Grace Nelson and Rhian Swanson reset career highs with 17 and 22 kills, respectively, but the Kansas volleyball team lost to Purdue 3-2 (16-25, 25-19, 18-25, 25-21, 11-15) on Friday night at Holloway Gymnasium in West Lafayette, Indiana.

The defeat sent KU to 3-4 on the season, spoiling its run at the Stacey Clark classic after its victories on Wednesday and Thursday. It also completed a circle of parity between KU, Purdue and Georgia Tech after the Yellow Jackets had beaten the Boilermakers on Wednesday and then lost to the Jayhawks on Thursday.

KU, which entered the week ranked No. 15 in the country, is now 1-4 against ranked teams in the early stages of the year, with all of its losses coming in five-set matches against Penn State (then No. 2), Wisconsin (then No. 8), Creighton (then No. 12) and now Purdue (No. 17).

Nelson added 18 digs for a double-double, and Ryan White tallied 13 from her libero spot. Setter Cristin Cline recorded 48 assists and a team-high three service aces for the Jayhawks, who committed 17 service errors on the match to the Boilermakers’ five, including one by Nelson that kicked off a 6-0 run for Purdue when KU had been leading 8-6 in the fifth set.

That run also featured two kills by Purdue’s Akasha Anderson and a pair of attack errors by Swanson. KU got back as close as 12-10 before another service error, this time by Reese Ptacek, and Anderson and Lindsey Miller closed out the five-set victory for Purdue.

Anderson, Miller and Grace Heaney reached double digits, but Kenna Wollard pace Purdue wdith 20 kills and added 15 digs. Libero Ryan McAleer, a Kansas native, led all players with 30 digs.

Wollard had two kills as part of a key stretch of five straight points that essentially won Purdue the first set. The Jayhawks took an early lead in the second on a service ace by White and maintained it with some key blocks, including a pair split by Swanson and Aurora Papac as the middle of the set approached. The Boilermakers never got particularly close, and Nelson, Swanson and Jovana Zelenovic all played a role in shutting the door for KU.

Purdue took a 2-1 lead with its 25-18 victory in the third set, one in which the Jayhawks managed just a single kill after cutting their deficit to 18-14, subsisting largely off the Boilermakers’ errors.

Aisha Aiono, who played two sets on the night for KU, started strong in the fourth with an initial kill as the Jayhawks jumped ahead 4-0. They held off Purdue for a while before back-to-back blocks by Anderson on Aiono tied the set at 9-9, but the Jayhawks benefited from a service error by Sienna Foster and went back in front. KU led by as many as eight points and coasted to the fourth-set victory, but it wasn’t enough as the Boilermakers ultimately came through in the clutch.

Still weeks away from their first match at Horejsi Family Volleyball Arena (Sept. 26 against Arizona State), the Jayhawks will head out to South Dakota to face Florida Gulf Coast at 4 p.m. Central Time on Thursday.