Box score, play-by-play (HTML)
 
SEATTLE – On what turned into a long night, the Seattle Pacific Falcons won the tiebreaking game in short order.
 
Gabby Oddo and Symone Tran both posted double-doubles, and Amanda Ganete served up the last nine points of a 10-0 run in Game 5 to help SPU get past Montana State Billings in a Great Northwest Athletic Conference volleyball match.
 
Scores in Brougham Pavilion in front of a boisterous freshman orientation crowd were 25-20, 15-25, 25-20, 23-25, 15-3.
 
Junior outside hitter Oddo had 15 kills and 16 digs, her second double-double of the week, and added five block assists. Senior setter Tran racked up a season-high 54 assists to go along with 17 digs
 



 

SPU had a 3-2 lead in the deciding game when a kill by senior middle blocker Shaun Crespi made it 4-2. Ganete then took over the serve to help the Falcons run their lead all the way to 13-2 in the first-to-15 deciding game and effectively put the match away.
 
"At the end of the day, most matches come down to who can serve and pass better," head coach Abbie Wright said after the Falcons (7-6, 5-1 GNAC) won their fifth straight match – the longest such streak since 2014. "We just happened to be on the good side of that bargain tonight. If you can serve and pass well, you can do a lot of things well."
 
During that 10-0 outburst, the points came from everywhere: the initial kill by Crespi, one by Oddo, two by Tran (both of hers on dumps at the net, which she consistently does very effectively), two combined blocks by Oddo and sophomore middle Gabi Stegemoller, a Ganete service ace, and three Billings errors.
 
Although finishing at just .190 hitting for the night, Seattle Pacific hit .667 (7 kills-1 error-9 attacks) in Game 5.
 
 "Amanda was just on a roll. Her serves were getting them out of system," Oddo said. "It was so easy to pass their balls because it was so high. So then, our hitters were able hit hard, Symone was able to set well, and it all just blended together."
 
The Falcons used a 6-0 run in the opening game to go from 17-16 down to 22-17 up. Montana State Billings (6-8, 0-5 GNAC), which won its first six matches of the season but now has lost eight straight, immediately took charge of Game 2 by scoring the first three points on the way to a 12-2 lead.
 
A five-point SPU lead in the third game at 17-12 melted to one at 19-18. The Falcons then put the next four on the board to regain control at 23-18.
 
The Yellowjackets, down 23-21 in the fourth game, staved off defeat by scoring the final four points to force the deciding fifth.
 
 

"I'm proud of the girls for playing through their emotions and the unpredictability of the match," Wright said. "This was a good test for us to see if we can persevere through that. We went to five with Billings last year (in Montana). They're a gritty team and they played with a lot of heart. It was just being able to think through the game, and we did that, especially at the end."
 
BY THE NUMBERS
--This was just the second five-gamer of the year for SPU. Its only other one was a loss to Metro State of Denver on Aug. 25 at Ellensburg in the Falcon-Wildcat Invitational.
-- Gabi Stegemoller finished with a  career-high nine block assists. Her previous high was eight last Oct. 21 against Alaska Fairbanks. Stegemoller also had nine kills and hit .368.
 

-- Shaun Crespi continued her solid hitting with a season-best .474 (10 kills-1 error-19 attacks). She hit .385 against Concordia-Portland last Saturday and .368 on Tuesday against Saint Martin's. She also recorded five total blocks on Thursday.
-- Redshirt senior opposite Hailey Gaines had 12 kills and five block assists.
-- With her team-high 23 digs, Amanda Ganete is now just four shy of moving into No. 5 on the all-time SPU list. The mark to beat is 1,379 by Tiffany Butac from 2003-06.
-- Symone Tran's 54 assists moved past 3,500 for her career, now at 3,532.
-- That factored into a season-high 63 kills for SPU. The previous best was 52 in a four-game loss at Western Washington on Sept.6.
-- The Falcons had a season-high 14 points on blocks, with four of those in Game 5 – the last of them on match point by Oddo and Stegemoller.
 
UP NEXT
Having taken all four matches in its homestand, Seattle Pacific returns to the road next week, visiting Northwest Nazarene on Thursday at 6:00 p.m. Pacific time.
 
 
NCAA WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL
Thursday, Sept. 19, 2018
Brougham Pavilion / Seattle, Wash.
 
Seattle Pacific 3, Montana State Billings 2
 
Game scores – 25-20, 15-25, 25-20, 23-25, 15-3.
 
Service aces – MSUB 5 (Alexa Smythe 2, Taylor Sherman 2), SPU 5 (Hailey Gaines 3).
Kills – MSUB 52 (Maddi Vigil 15), SPU 63 (Gabby Oddo 15, Hailey Gaines 12, Jaeden Hooker 11, Shaun Crespi 10).
Assists – MSUB 50 (Smythe 42), SPU 60 (Symone Tran 54).
Digs – MSUB 72 (Smythe 17), SPU 83 (Amanda Ganete 23, Tran 17, Oddo 16, Mallie Donohoe 13).
Block assists / solo – MSUB 20 / 1 solo (Eavan Taylor 6 / 1 solo), SPU 26 / 1 solo (Gabi Stegemoller 9 / 0 solo).
Hitting (kills-errors-attacks) – MSUB 52-26-173—150 (Smythe 5-1-12—333), SPU 63-30-174—190 (Shaun Crespi 10-1-19—474).
Attendance – 1,123.
 
Records
Seattle Pacific 7-6, 5-1 GNAC.   Montana State Billings 6-8, 0-5 GNAC.
 
 
Next match
Seattle Pacific at Northwest Nazarene
Thursday, Sept. 27, 6:00 p.m. PDT
Johnson Sports Center / Nampa, Idaho