KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The University of Providence volleyball team finished the season ranked #5 in the final NAIA National Volleyball Poll, the NAIA announced on Wednesday. The ranking is the highest final ranking the team has achieved in program history.

"I'm so excited and ecstatic about where our program is at right now," head coach Arunas Duda said. "From where we've been to where we're at now, it's been a lot of hard work, and there's been a lot of players that we attribute this too. To finish the year in the Top 5 in the country with the amount of good teams there are is such an honor. We couldn't be more excited about it."

The Argos (28-3) are coming off their best season in program history. The team won a school record 28 games, during which they ripped off 21 straight wins, another program record. The squad won the regular season championship for the third season in a row and the conference tournament for the fourth season in a row.

The team qualified for the NAIA National Tournament, cruising through their pool without dropping a set to advance to the quarterfinals for the first time in program history, where the squad lost to #4 Park in four sets. 

"It's impressive what those girls did," Duda said. "They were so consistent throughout the regular season. They approached every match with such focus and such a good mindset. During the match they just displayed such grit. It was just cool to see. It was impressive how they kept after it and kept plugging away."

All the success the program had this year only makes the team hungrier to go farther in the future. The coaching staff has already turned their attention to next season, where the team will return NAIA All-Tournament team member Sadie Lott and All-Regional Player Jenna Thorne to the roster.

"When you've been to the National Tournament, all you want to do is go back and get better," Duda said. "We got to the Elite Eight, now we want to get to the Final Four and beyond. Coaches are perpetually unsatisfied. We want to win a National Championship, that's our goal. Finally that's a realistic goal for us."