BELHAVEN — The Pungo Christian Academy volleyball team had history on its side — two Tarheel Independent Conference tournament titles and two regular season championships through the last three seasons. But on Thursday, in one of the biggest upsets of the year, the Raiders three-year home winning streak came to an end in what head coach Melanie Sawyer called a “devastating loss.”

Albemarle, currently positioned in the bottom half of the TIC standings, exited Belhaven with a surprising yet hard-fought 3-2 victory over the Raiders, handing Pungo its second loss of the season.

“We just have to learn to fight. They come in scared,” Sawyer said reluctantly after the game. “Sometimes when you’re undefeated, it’s harder if you haven’t won a ballgame because everybody’s after you.

“Albemarle just tips because they don’t have a power hitter and we talked about that yesterday in practice the whole time, we just couldn’t cover it. We were just a step too slow.”

For the Colts, who recorded a total of just eight kills through five games, consistency and accurate serving gave them a slight advantage over a Pungo team that committed an excess of unforced errors down the stretch. Albemarle’s Savannah Simpson led her team with five kills, while Pungo’s Taylor Mann led all hitters with 18 kills. But when Mann found herself on the back line in a defensive position, the Colts capitalized.

Despite the loss, Alexis Carowan also had a productive day for the Raiders, notching nine kills, but the sophomore middle hitter had little impact in the fifth game.

“I’m really just trying to get Alexis to fight,” Sawyer said. “She’s timid, but she’s really starting to read the court, see the holes and she’s trying to place them. For a 10th grader, that’s a big plus for us. But Taylor, we just need to set her up.”

Early in the first game, it looked like another runaway victory for Pungo. Setter Macy Morgan worked efficiently with Mann up front and the Raiders’ serving was solid, Mann letting loose four-straight aces at one point. Carowan also shined early, notching four kills in a 25-15 Game 1 win.

For whatever reason, the uniformity displayed in the first game did not continue on into the second. Pungo may have had more aces, kills, assists and blocks, but too many unforced errors lifted the Colts to a rather easy 25-17 victory.

The most crushing of defeats came in the third game, where the Raiders maintained what should have been a comfortable lead for the majority of the points. However, up 18-15, Albemarle pieced together a pair of aces and once again took advantage of Pungo miscues en route to a 25-22 win.

In Game 4, it was the Raiders who came from behind. Mann blasted five kills and an ace, while Carowan, Victoria Gibbs and Morgan provided support defensively. Pungo’s 25-19 win would force a fifth-game tiebreaker.

Albemarle and Pungo exchanged the lead four times in Game 5, before Lindsay Windlow took over, smashing two kills and four crippling aces to life the Colts to a 15-10 win.

Despite the loss, Sawyer is remaining confident in a team that has experienced so much success this season.

“I just want to finish strong in the top of the conference,” she said. “I would love to go in and surprise everybody in the conference tournament, but this conference, it could be anybody.”

With the loss, Pungo drops to 9-2 (4-2 TIC) and will face off against rival Terra Ceia on the road on Tuesday.