Box score, play-by-play
 
FAIRBANKS, Alaska – The Seattle Pacific Falcons started out perfect – then stayed pretty close to it for the rest of the night.
                      
Cailin Fellows had 14 kills, Madi Cavell added 11, and SPU had four players hit for .400 or better on Thursday in a three-game Great Northwest Athletic Conference volleyball sweep of Alaska Fairbanks.
                   
Scores in The Patty Center were 25-18, 25-20, 25-18.
                   
For the second time in their past three matches, the Falcons (12-12, 9-6 GNAC) hit .400 as a team. SPU had 44 kills and a season-low six errors on 95 attacks. Last Thursday in a sweep of Saint Martin's in Seattle, the Falcons finished at .473 hitting with just seven errors.
 
The performance at Fairbanks included a 12-kill, error-free first game that netted a season-best .680 hitting percentage, followed by .382 in the second game and a still-respectable .222 in the third. That boosted the Falcons' overall 2012 average to a season-high .215.
 
Senior outside hitter Fellows (Edmonds, Wash. / Edmonds-Woodway HS) hit .406 for the match. Sophomore opposite Cavell (Keizer, Ore.) finished at .409. Junior middle blocker Nikki Lowell (Claremont, Calif.)  had 10 kills and a .471 percentage, and junior middle blocker Nikki Cheek (Puyallup, Wash. / Emerald Ridge HS) had an error-free match with four kills on eight swings and hit .500.
 
“We were doing a good job of hitting it in and keeping the pressure on our opponent, and it paid off,” SPU head coach Chris Johnson said. “I don't know the last time, if ever, where our outsides both had double-digit kills and hit over .400. And I don't know if it has ever happened where he had four hitters doing that. Everybody out there was doing a good job.”
 
Senior setter Shelby Swanson (Kennewick, Wash. / Kamiakin HS) had 39 assists. Freshman libero Breanne Wiekamp (Laguna Niguel, Calif.) came up with 11 digs.
 
Swanson's assist total gave her 980 for the season and 3,624 for her career. She needs 119 in her final three matches to climb into the GNAC all-time top five.
 
Cheek, who got the start on Thursday, also tied her career high with four block assists, matching what she did against Fairbanks on Oct. 13 in Seattle.
 
“That's what we expect from her,” Johnson said of Cheek. “She just goes out there and does her job, and she does that in practice, too. She gets done what she needs to get done.”
 
The Falcons had the lead on Fairbanks (5-16, 3-12 GNAC) through most of all three games. A 4-0 run in the first game put them permanently in front at 9-6. In Game 2, Seattle Pacific strung together six straight points, with swanson serving up five of them, to go from 15-12 down to 18-15 ahead. The third game was tied at 13-13 when SPU rang up three in a row and never trailed again.
 
Fairbanks finished with a  .194 hitting average. The Nanooks had a solid Game 1 at .286 before dropping to .175 and .150.
 
“It's always good to see when our opponent's percentage goes down each game,” Johnson said. “That means we're paying attention and doing a good job of making adjustments.”
 
Seattle Pacific visits Alaska Anchorage on Saturday at 9 p.m. Pacific time in its final road match of the season. 
 
 
NCAA WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL
Thursday, November 8, 2012
The Patty Center / Fairbanks, Alaska
 
Seattle Pacific 3, Alaska Fairbanks 0
 
Game scores – 25-18, 25-20, 25-18.
 
Service aces – SPU 4 (4 players with 1), UAF 4 (Katlyn Mataya 2).
Kills – SPU 44 (Cailin Fellows 14, Madi Cavell 11, Nikki Lowell 10), UAF 39 (Reilly Stevens 13).
Assists – SPU 40 (Shelby Swanson 39), UAF 34 (Mataya 30).
Digs – SPU 42 (Breanne Wiekamp 11), UAF 41 (Allison Oddy 9, Kylie Dickerson 9).
Block assists / solo blocks – SPU 8 / 0 solo (Nikki Cheek 4 / 0 solo), UAF 2 / 2 solo (Britt Glaeser 1 / 1 solo, Megan Morrison 1 / 1 solo).
Hitting (kills-errors-attacks) – SPU 44-6-95--.400 (Cheek 4-0-8--.500, Lowell 10-2-17--.471, Cavell 11-2-22--.409, Fellows 14-1-32--.406), UAF 39-18-108--.194 (Mataya 3-0-9--.333, Morrison 9-3-24--.250).
Attendance – 217.
 
Records – Seattle Pacific 12-12, 9-6 GNAC. Alaska Fairbanks 5-16, 3-12 GNAC.
 
Next match – Seattle Pacific at Alaska Anchorage, Saturday, 9:00 p.m. PST.