The Upper Arlington High School girls volleyball team accomplished what it set out to do two months ago: improve on last season.

The Golden Bears, who ended the season with a 25-14, 25-27, 25-22, 25-18 loss to 10th-seeded Watterson in a Division I district semifinal Oct. 27 at Licking Heights, finished 16-9 overall, marking a four-win improvement over last season when they went 12-11.

It's also the Bears' second-highest win total in the last seven seasons. Since 2003, the only season in which they won more matches was 2006, when they finished 17-7.

"Our goal was to improve from last year to this year, but we did even more than that," outside hitter Kate Dangel said. "I'm really happy with our season."

Seeded ninth, UA beat Delaware 29-27, 25-18, 12-25, 25-18 in the first round of the tournament Oct. 20 and defeated 12th-seeded Dresden Tri-Valley 23-25, 25-16, 25-10, 21-25, 15-10 in the second round Oct. 24 to reach a district semifinal for the first time since 2004.

The Bears advanced to a district semifinal for only the fourth time in the last 12 years. They haven't won a district championship since 1990 and lost in the first round each of the last two seasons. They had won only one postseason match in the last four years.

"Everyone wanted to make the tournament special, because in past years we haven't gone far in the tournament," Dangel said.

UA finished 4-6 in the challenging OCC-Central Division to tie Thomas Worthington for fourth, behind Dublin Coffman (10-0), Hilliard Davidson (7-3) and Worthington Kilbourne (5-5) and ahead of Hilliard Darby (0-10). Coffman and Thomas won district championships and Davidson was a district runner-up.

"There are a lot of ways to judge success," coach Brian Pomerantz said. "If you look at where the team was last year in terms of wins and losses, mentally and cohesiveness-wise, this team had a great year. It's been a successful year by many benchmarks."

UA loses five seniors in Dangel, Kathy Chilikov (setter), Kadie Koeneman (outside hitter), Emma Gargus (middle hitter) and Lizzie Hansel (right-side hitter). Koeneman, who plans to play at Division II Indiana University of Pennsylvania, was named first-team all-OCC-Central and Dangel made second-team all-league.

"The seniors have been rebuilding the program the last three years," Pomerantz said. "They went through some rough matches and rough years. They earned the success that they had this year. I'm really proud to see them do it."

Expected to return are juniors Janine Berger (libero), Ava Cramp (middle hitter), Katie Jones (setter) and Molly Lex (libero) and sophomore Kelly Hutchinson (outside hitter). Cramp made honorable mention all-league.

"I see fantastic things for this team. Not just next year, but years to come," Pomerantz said. "We've got a lot of experience coming back next year."