THE SCHEDULE
Thursday, Oct. 9 Seattle Pacific at Northwest Nazarene, 6:00 p.m. PDT Johnson Sports Center / Nampa, Idaho
Live Webcast Live statsSaturday, Oct. 11 Seattle Pacific at Central Washington, 7:00 p.m. Nicholson Pavilion / Ellensburg, Wash.
Live Webcast Live stats Weekly release, with complete updated stats (PDF) SEATTLE – The path to the volleyball postseason doesn't get any easier. But the Seattle Pacific Falcons have gotten themselves squarely back onto it.
After snapping a three-match losing streak last Saturday with a back-and-forth five-game victory at Montana State Billings, SPU hits the road again this week. The Falcons visit Northwest Nazarene on Thursday at 6:00 p.m. Pacific time in Nampa, Idaho, then heading to Ellensburg for a match against Central Washington on Saturday at 7:00 p.m.
This week's matches will bring the Falcons and the other nine GNAC teams to the midpoint of the conference schedule, with nine matches down and nine to go. The second half of the double round-robin schedule begins next Thursday.
Heading into the week, the top six teams – including the Falcons – are within 2½ games of each other, with Alaska Anchorage currently in first place.
FOLLOW IT LIVELive stats and a free live Webcast will be available from this week's two matches. Both will be through Stretch Internet, the official Internet provider of the GNAC. Appropriate links to the Webcast and live stats can be found at the top of this story.
BATTLE IS BREWING FOR REGIONAL BERTHS
The first set of NCAA West Regional rankings won't be out until later this month. But who winds up on that first top-10 list – and more important, who is in the top 8, since that's how many eventually make the tournament – is anybody's guess.
Heading into this week, the leading overall records in the West belong to
Northwest Nazarene (13-2, 6-1 GNAC),
Alaska Anchorage (13-3, 7-1 GNAC) and
Cal State Los Angeles (10-2, 8-1 CCAA).
Brigham Young-Hawaii has three losses (9-3), but is 6-0 in the Pacific West, half a match behind leader
Dixie State (7-0, but just 10-5 overall). A total of four teams are sitting on four losses, and five more (including
SPU) have five losses.
Click on
this link for a look at the latest CCAA standings, and on
this link to see the latest Pacific West standings.
SO WHAT'S THE STORY THIS WEEK?-- The Falcons have done well
away from Seattle this fall, winning five out of seven. That includes a
3-1 mark in true road matches and 2-1 on a neutral court.
-- The all-time series against Central Washington remains the closest of any Seattle Pacific opponent – and it got even closer last year, as the Wildcats won both matches to draw within 34-32 all-time.
-- NNU also beat the Falcons both times last year.
-- SPU and Northwest Nazarene didn't start playing each other until 2000, just one year before the advent of the GNAC. SPU is 9-5 all-time in Nampa.
-- Of the 28 all-time matches between the Falcons and Crusaders, nine have gone to the five-game limit. SPU has a 6-3 record in those
-- SPU and Central have played their share of five-gamers, as well – 15, to be precise. The Wildcats have an 8-7 edge, including last year in Ellensburg. At least one match between them in each of the past three years has gone to the limit.
-- Falcons coach
Chris Johnson is 12-6 all-time against Northwest Nazarene, with a 6-3 record in Nampa. He is 10-8 against Central Washington, 5-4 in Ellensburg.
SCOUTING THE NORTHWEST NAZARENE CRUSADERS: 13-2, 6-1 GNAC (2nd)
All-time series: SPU leads, 20-8.
Current series streak: NNU won 3.
Last time: NNU 3, SPU 1 (18-25, 25-21, 31-29, 25-23; Nov. 7, 2013 at Seattle).
Crusaders on the Web.
Crusaders in a nutshell: Northwest Nazarene had a 12-match winning streak going until Western Washington halted it in four games last Saturday in Bellingham. NNU leads the conference in four major statistical categories. Among those are 13.49 kills per game, and 2.65 blocks per game. The Crusaders also average 20.69 digs per game, a mark which ranks third in Division II. There is no shortage of options on offense, as three players are bunched very close in kills: junior 6-foot-4 middle blocker
Andrea Terpstra (a team-leading 151), 5-9 freshman outside hitter
Kendra Bodine (147), and 6-3 junior outside
Elayna Rice (144). On the brink of 100 kills is another freshman, 6-2 middle blocker
Madi Farrell (99, with a .299 hitting average). Terpstra has 68 blocks (five solo), and Farrell has 51.
SCOUTING THE CENTRAL WASHINGTON WILDCATS: 10-5, 3-4 GNAC (7th)
All-time series: SPU leads, 34-32.
Current series streak: CWU won 2.
Last time: CWU 3, SPU 0 (25-23, 25-17, 28-26; Nov. 9, 2013 at Seattle).
Wildcats on the Web.
Wildcats on the Web: Central started the season with a splash, hosting a high-caliber tournament in which it beat three CCAA teams, all of which were nationally ranked at the time: No. 8 Cal State San Bernardino, No. 11 UC San Diego, and No. 16 Sonoma State; the first two in four games, the latter in a sweep. But they come into this week looking to get back on track, having lost their last three in GNAC play to Alaska Anchorage, Western Washington, and Simon Fraser, respectively. Junior outside hitter
Linden Firethorne, at 5-11, ranks No. 3 in GNAC total kills (197) and kills per game (3.58). She also leads the team in hitting at .238, and Central is tied with Alaska Anchorage as the top hitting team in the conference at .215.
Kaitlin Quirk, a 6-1 junior, is fourth in GNAC blocking at 1.04 per game (54 total), and senior libero
Kaely Kight keeps the ball alive with an average of 5.29 digs per game, the No. 3 GNAC mark.
FALCONS REPLAY--
Madi Cavell,
Ellie Britt, and
Sara Biondi all had double-doubles, and Cavell put down the match-clincher as SPU halted a three-match losing streak by beating Montana State Billings,
25-20, 20-25, 25-21, 18-25, 15-11.
DOUBLE-DOUBLE DELIGHTS
Sara Biondi,
Ellie Britt, and
Madi Cavell all had a double-double in last Saturday's match at Montana State Billings The Falcons now have 14 double-doubles for the season, along with Biondi's triple-double on Sept. 11 against Academy of Art.
2014 double-doubles:
Madi Cavell (6 season / 20 career): 11K-13D vs. Chico State, Sept. 4; 19K-14D vs. Cal State L.A., Sept. 5, 29K-19D vs. Western Oregon, Sept. 18, 14K-10D at Alaska Fairbanks, Sept. 20; 15K-13D vs. Simon Fraser, Sept. 27; 19K-15D at Montana State Billings, Oct. 4.
Sara Biondi (6 season / 7 career): 34A-11D vs. Cal Poly Pomona, Sept. 5; 41A-11D vs. Dixie State, Sept. 6, 28A-10D vs. Saint Martin's, Sept. 16, 42A-13D vs. Western Oregon, Sept. 18; 40A-10D vs. Western Washington, Sept. 25; 44A-12D at Montana State Billings, Oct. 4.
Ellie Britt (2 season / 7 career):17K-10D vs. Fresno Pacific, Sept. 13; 15K-10D at Montana State Billings, Oct. 4.
2014 triple-doubles:
Sara Biondi (1 season / 1 career): 12K-41A-18D vs. Academy of Art, Sept. 11.
COULD BE A GRAND WEEK FOR CAVELL …Senior outside hitter
Madi Cavell is on the cusp of topping the 1,000-point mark for her career. Cavell (Keizer, Ore.) comes into this week with 975 points, with 821 of those on kills, 71 on service aces, 9 on solo blocks, and 74 on block assists.
Madi Cavell Cavell would be ninth player in SPU history to top 1,000 points since that became part of the statistics records in 2004. Now-graduated middle blocker
Nikki Lowell got there last year, and finished her career with 1,295.5 points.
Once Cavell gets into that 1,000 neighborhood, she can move up quickly. The four players immediately ahead of her range from 1,019 to 1,079. SPU's all-time leading scorer is
Alyssa Given, with 1,718 from 2004-07. Cavell's 2014 average of 4.56 points per game would rank No. 4 all-time for SPU if she keeps it in that range.
… JUST LIKE LAST WEEK WAS FOR BIONDI 
Sara Biondi Senior setter
Sara Biondi passed a millennial mark of her own last Saturday night at Montana State Billings. Biondi racked up 44 assists in that five-game match, giving her 529 for the season and 1,013 as a Falcon.
Biondi (Sacramento, Calif.) has 1,884 assists for her career. The first 871 of those came when she was a freshman at Washington State in 2010. She left the Cougars after that season and began playing for the Falcons in 2012.
RARE DOUBLE-DIGIT BLOCKING AIRSPU has had its share of talented blockers over the years, but having one player get into double-digits for a match actually isn't all that common.
Maddi Hommes It happened last week in Billings when sophomore
Maddi Hommes got up for 10 block assists against the Yellowjackets. That was the fourth time this season Hommes (Lynden, Wash. / Lynden HS) has rewritten her career high. She got the first three blocks of her career in the season opener on Sept. 4 against Chico State, and subsequently increased that to four (three different times), five (twice), and, most recently, seven against Simon Fraser on Sept. 27.
The last double-digit performance by a Falcon was 13 by Angie Pricco against Western Washington on Oct. 8, 2011.
Hommes also edged in front of freshman
Hannah Lautenbach for the team lead. Hommes now has 51 total blocks for the season, and Lautenbach has 45.
IN FACT, THE BLOCK IS BACKAfter no blocks in five-game win against Western Oregon on Sept. 18, and just six block assists (for three points) at Alaska Fairbanks two nights later, the Falcons have stepped up their pace.
SPU had 14 block assists and one solo against Western Washington (eight points), 24 block assists and one solo (13 points) against Simon Fraser, then had a season-high 28 blocks assists plus one solo for 15 points at Montana State Billings last Saturday.
GOOD STARTS PAY OFFSeattle Pacific won the opening game at Montana State Billings, the first time that has happened since a three-game sweep at Alaska Fairbanks on Sept. 20.
That definitely bodes well. The Falcons are 7-1 this season when winning Game 1, the only loss coming on Sept. 5 against Cal Poly Pomona.
NATIONALLY SPEAKING
Madi Cavell ranks in the top 25 among NCAA Division II players in five categories heading into this week's matches:
--14
th in attacks per game (11.5)
--19
th in total attacks (667)
--21
st in kills per game (4.03)
--22
nd in total kills (234)
--23
rd in points per game (4.56)
SPU's highest among the 287 teams playing D2 volleyball is 68
th in total blocks (116.0).
Click on
this link to see where SPU stacks up nationally. Click on
this link to see where other GNAC teams and players rank in Division II.
MILESTONES IN THE MAKING
100th block Jessica Boyle (has 93)
200th assist Brianna Leenders (has 184)
200th kill Sara Biondi (has 180)
300th point Sara Biondi (has 298.5)
Jessica Boyle (has 298.0)
400th kill Ellie Britt (has 388)
1,000th point Madi Cavell (has 975.0)
MILESTONES MADE LAST WEEK
100th block Jessica Miller (has 100)
600th dig Breanne Wiekamp (has 607)
AROUND THE GNAC Click on
this link for results, news, and notes from around the Great Northwest Athletic Conference.
UP NEXTThe Falcons play their only two October home matches next week when
Alaska Anchorage and
Alaska Fairbanks visit Brougham Pavilion to start the second half of the GNAC schedule. The Seawolves are here on Thursday the 16
th, followed by the Nanooks on Saturday the 18
th, both at 7:00 p.m. Seattle Pacific was swept by Anchorage in Alaska last month, and scored a sweep at Fairbanks.
GNAC STANDINGS
GNAC OverallAlaska Anchorage 7-1 13-3
Northwest Nazarene 6-1 12-2
Western Washington 5-2 12-4
Seattle Pacific 4-3 10-5
Simon Fraser 4-3 10-5
Montana State Billings 4-3 9-6
Central Washington 3-4 10-5
Alaska Fairbanks 2-6 2-14
Saint Martin's 1-6 4-14
Western Oregon 0-7 2-13
