LACEY -- An occasional bad game is no longer a bad sign for the Seattle Pacific volleyball team.
The Falcons merely shake it off, move onto the next one, and get back on track.
They did it again on Saturday night. Deadlocked 1-1 against Saint Martin's heading into the 10-minute break, the Falcons went on a surge midway through the third game, then were in complete charge of the fourth game on the way to closing out a Great Northwest Athletic Conference victory against the Saints.
Scores in Marcus Pavilion were 25-16, 22-25, 25-19, 25-11. It was the 15th straight time Seattle Pacific has beaten Saint Martin's.
Priscilla Collings registered her second straight double-double and the team's 15th of the season as SPU got off to a 2-0 start in conference play and boosted its overall record to 8-6. Collings (Chula Vista, Calif.), a sophomore outside hitter who was coming off a career-high 22 kills in Thursday night's five-game comeback victory at Northwest Nazarene, had 17 kills, 14 digs, and hit .306.
The Falcons now have as many victories in the 2009 books as they had for all of 2008, when they went 8-18. And as the season has progressed, coach Chris Johnson gradually has come to expect that any setback -- such as Saturday's second game -- is only temporary.
“We were able to recover from Game 2. That comes with our confidence in ourselves,” said Johnson, whose team won its third straight and seventh of its past eight (including a non-counter against British Columbia). “The second game, we just let it get away from us, and we weren't really passing very well. Then the third and fourth games, we hit well again (.235 and .263 after just .097 in Game 2), and we held them to .033 hitting in the third and zero (.000) in the fourth.”
Lindsey Wodrich (Richland, Wash./Richland HS), another sophomore outside hitter, added 11 kills for the Falcons.
Sophomore libero Anna Herold (Bothell, Wash./Shorecrest HS) came up with 20 digs, senior setter Cortney Weedman (Scottsdale, Ariz.) had 28 assists and a team-leading four service aces, freshman middle blocker Angie Pricco (Briar, Wash./Blanchet HS) had six blocks, and sophomore middle blocker Amber Johnson (Mount Vernon, Wash./Mount Vernon HS) added five blocks, five kills and hit .364 with just one error on 11 total attacks.
“We have a lot of depth at every position, and that's a really good feeling to have as a coach,” Johnson said.
After yielding the first point of the match to Saint Martin's (1-8, 0-2 GNAC), the Falcons ran off five in a row, the last four of those with Wodrich serving. Johnson had two straight kills and Collings hammered one during that stretch as SPU took the lead for good.
Seattle Pacific built a 6-2 lead in the second game, and was still up 10-9 when the Saints strung together four straight points and never trailed again.
Saint Martin's had a 4-2 lead in Game 3 and was still ahead at 10-9 before the Falcons ran off nine of the next 10 points for an 18-11 advantage that never melted below five the rest of the way. SPU then racked up the first five points of Game 4, all of them on serves by Weedman (including an ace on the first point), with three kills from Wodrich.
It was 7-5 when the Falcons went on a 12-0 scoring streak, the last 11 with Herold serving. And they put nine of those 12 points on the board themselves: four kills by Collings, two by sophomore outside hitter Paige Hoffman (Encinitas, Calif.), one by Weedman, one by Pricco, and one on a service ace by Herold.
SPU hit .224, eight points above the conference-leading average it brought into the match.
It all added up to an undefeated start in GNAC play, with defending champion Western Oregon coming to Brougham Pavilion for the conference home opener next Thursday night at 7:30.
“(Going) 2-0 is big, especially on the road,” Johnson said. “And now, we have a long time without having to fly anywhere, so that will be nice.
“We're just trying to get better every day.”
