Box score, play-by-play

BELLINGHAM – They battled back. They took the lead. They fought off game points, they fought off match points.
 
About the only thing the Seattle Pacific Falcons weren't able to do on Thursday was secure the last two points that they needed.
                         
Western Washington overcame a slow start in the deciding fifth game, coming from 8-1 down to win it and beat SPU in a Great Northwest Athletic Conference volleyball showdown in Carver Gym, 3-2.
                     
Scores were 25-20, 30-32, 25-22, 20-25, 18-16.
 
Seattle Pacific is still atop the GNAC, but it's now considerably closer. The Falcons are 13-3, 19-6 overall. Western Washington improved to 12-3, 14-5 overall, and Alaska Anchorage, which swept Northwest Nazarene, also is 12-3, 16-7 overall.
 
“We've been a resilient team all year. We don't have any quit in us, that's for sure,” SPU coach Chris Johnson said. “Our girls believe they can come back from a game down and take a game. It comes down to a couple key plays here and there, and they just went the wrong way tonight.”
 
Senior outside hitter Lindsey Wodrich (Richland, Wash./Richland HS) hammered 24 kills and came up with 17 digs. Senior outside hitter Paige Hoffman had 11 kills and a career-high 25 digs. Senior libero Anna Herold (Bothell, Wash./Shorecrest HS) had a career-high 43 digs, and freshman libero/defensive specialist Brianna Leenders (Portland, Ore.) came up with a career-high 20 digs.
 
The match went 2 hours, 13 minutes, and was the second five-gamer between the teams this season.(SPU won in Brougham Pavilion on Oct. 8.) Altogether this season, the teams battled for 4 hours, 9 minutes.
 
“We came together and pushed it through and duked it out in the second and third games,” Hoffman said. “It was an emotional match, really intense. We were just short a couple points here and there, and that takes the match. This isn't an easy place to play. Everyone just really came out hard and firing, and we were off by just a little bit.
 
“If anything,” Hoffman said, “this gives us more fire to push through the rest of the season and into the postseason.”
 
The very first point of the match took nearly a full minute to play, with numerous digs on each side before it finally fell Western's way. That merely set the tone for the rest of the night.
 
--The Vikings had six tries to close out Game 2 at 25-24, 26-25, 27-26, 28-27, 29-28, and 30-29. The Falcons fought off all of them, finally going up 31-30 on a Western net violation, and clinching it on a combined block by Wodrich and senior middle blocker Angie Pricco (Brier, Wash./Blanchet HS).
 
“That second game was huge,” Hoffman said. “That changes everything – someone's either up 2-0, or it's back to a 1-1 tie. You don't really ever hear of a game going that high. For us to stick in there and dig and battle with them, it was really fun.”
 
--SPU raced out to that 8-1 lead in the fifth game. Western gradually climbed back into it, going on a 5-0 run to turn a 10-6 deficit into an 11-10 lead.
 
--The Vikings got double match point at 14-12 with Marlayna Geary serving. But Falcons freshman Jessica Miller (Fife, Wash./Fife HS), and got a kill off a Western Washington blocker, then sophomore middle blocker Nikki Lowell (Claremont, Calif.) tipped a ball off a Vikings blocker to square it at 14-14.
 
--Seattle Pacific got a match point at 15-14 on a kill by Hoffman to the corner. A Geary kill tied it at 15-15, and Western then took a 16-15 lead. The Falcons climbed back into a tie on a tip by Lowell, but the Vikings got the final two points, clinching it on Kinsey Davis' 18^th kill of the night.
 
“We made too many errors tonight, and they played good defense. They were digging a lot of balls on their side,” Johnson said. “But you look at all these stats, and it's about as close as it can be.”
 
SPU had season highs in digs (127, the previous was 92), total attacks (248, the previous was 186) and assists (63, the previous was 62). The Falcons' digs total was just seven shy of the all-time school record (set in 2005 against none other than Western Washington).
 
 
NCAA WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Carver Gym / Bellingham, Wash.
 
Western Washington 3, (No. 24) Seattle Pacific 2
 
Game scores – 25-20, 30-32, 25-22, 20-25, 18-16.
 
Service aces – SPU 4 (Shelby Swanson 2), WWu 2 (2 players with 1).
Kills – SPU 65 (Lindsey Wodrich 24, Paige Hoffman 11, Nikki Lowell 11), WWU 75 (Marlayna Geary 18, Kinsey Davis 18).
Assists – SPU 63 (Swanson 54), WWU 75 (Laurie Yearout 67).
Digs – SPU 127 (Anna Herold 43, Hoffman 25, Brianna Leenders 20), WWKU 128 (Samantha Hutchinson 45).
Blocks (total / solo) – SPU 23 / 1 solo (Angie Pricco 6 / 0 solo, Lowell 5 / 0 solo), WWU 25 / 1 solo (Emily Jepsen 6 / 0 solo).
Hitting (kills-errors-attacks) – SPU 65-32-248--.133 (Pricco 8-2-22—273, Lowell 11-4-31—226), WWU 75-35-254--.157 (Jepsen 14-5-41--.220).
Attendance – 503.
 
Records – Seattle Pacific 19-6, 13-3 GNAC. Western Washington 14-5, 12-3 GNAC.
 
Next match – Seattle Pacific at Simon Fraser, Saturday, 7:00 p.m.