Box Score

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ELLENSBURG, Wash. – Matches to the max have not been kind to the Seattle Pacific Falcons.
 
A season-high 18 kills for Lexi Biondi and another double-double for both Symone Tran and Gabby Oddo weren't enough on Saturday night as SPU dropped a five-game Great Northwest Athletic Conference volleyball contest to Central Washington.
 
Scores in Nicholson Pavilion were 25-21, 21-25, 25-17, 20-25, 15-10
 
It was the third straight five-gamer and sixth this season for the Falcons (5-9, 1-5 GNAC). Just one of those has gone their way.
 
Senior outside hitter Biondi (Albuquerque, N.M.) topped her previous season high of 11 kills. Saturday's total pushed her past 400 for her career. She now has 418.
 
Sophomore setter Tran (Portland, Ore.) tied her career high with 55 assists, a mark she set in Thursday's five-game loss at Northwest Nazarene. She also had 18 digs for her second straight double, seventh of the season and 20th of her career.

 

Freshman outside hitter Oddo (Alta Loma, Calif.) had 16 kills and 10 digs. It also was her second straight double-double, and 10th of the season.
 
Seattle Pacific finished with 60 kills, tying its second-highest output of the year, and trailing only the 61 it recorded at NNU. Central Washington (9-5, 5-1 GNAC) had just 45, but took advantage of 42 Falcon attack errors and 14 service errors.
 
"It was one of our best offensive outputs through four games this season," said SPU coach Chris Johnson, whose team has reached the midpoint of its 28-match season. "We were getting more kills than them, and we were out-hitting them, sometimes pretty significantly. But we gave them 56 points. We've had slow starts in too many games, and we're shooting ourselves in the foot."
 
One of those slow starts came in the fifth game. Central Washington scored the first four points, and never let the Falcons get closer than two, that at 6-4.
 
Twice on Saturday, Seattle Pacific fought back from a game down to pull even.
 
With Oddo on the serve, the Falcons racked up seven straight points in the middle of the second game to go from 17-14 behind to 21-17 ahead. Central Washington cut it to two at 23-21. But back-to-back kills by Biondi gave the Falcons the final two points they needed to earn the 1-1 split going into the break.

 

In Game 4, Seattle Pacific was down 12-9 when it put together a 6-0 run. Freshman middle blocker Abbey Lautenbach (Portland, Ore.) served up the last five of those, one of which was an ace, as the Falcons built a 15-12 lead. The Wildcats came as close as one at 18-17. SPU then got five of the next six for 23-18 on the way to forcing Game 5.
 
Lautenbach, making her second college start, hit a career-high .353 with eight kills and just two errors on 17 attacks. She also had two aces.
 
"Abbey had a great night, and Symone, too," Johnson said. "We need better performances from our key hitters, though. We got a pretty good output in terms of kills, but the percentage wasn't there."

 

Sophomore middle blocker Shaun Crespi (Camarillo, Calif.) had nine kills and eight blocks. Along with the six blocks she had at Northwest Nazarene on Thursday, that gave her 14 for the week and 81 in her 56 sets this season – one more than she had for all of 2015, when she was on the court for 88 sets.
 
Sophomore libero Amanda Ganete (Hillsboro,Ore.) had a team-high 23 digs, as the Falcons had five players in double-digit digs for the third match in a row.
 
Central Washington, which started the week ranked No. 2 nationally in NCAA Division II for blocking, got 20 points off the block.
 
Seattle Pacific starts a four-match homestand on Tuesday when Saint Martin's visits Brougham Pavilion at 7:00 p.m.
 
 
NCAA WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL
Saturday, Oct. 1, 2016
Nicholson Pavilion / Ellensburg, Wash.
 
Central Washington 3, Seattle Pacific 2
 
Game scores – 25-21, 21-25, 25-17, 20-25, 15-10.
 
Service aces – SPU 6 (Sophie Kuehl 3), CWU 3 (Erin Little 2).
Kills – SPU 50 (Lexi Biondi 18, Gabby Oddo 16), CWU 45 (Jordan Deming 9).
Assists – SPU 58 (Symone Tran 55), CWU 43 (Gaby Aihara 23).
Digs – SPU 86 (Amanda Ganete 23, Tran 18), CWU 79 (Kyla Morgan 18).
Block assists / solo – SPU 16 /1 solo (Shaun Crespi 7 / 1 solo), CWU 34 / 3 solo (Sabrina Wheelhouse 8 / 2 solo).
Hitting (kills-errors-attacks) – SPU 60-42-193—093 (Crespi 9-4-26—192), CWU 45-23-162—136 (Wheehouse 7-1-12--.500).
Attendance – 549.

Records – Seattle Pacific 5-9, 1-5 GNAC. Central Washington 9-5,5-1 GNAC.

Next match
Saint Martin's at Seattle Pacific
Tuesday, Oct. 4     7:00 p.m.
Brougham Pavilion