Box score (PDF)
 
BILLINGS, Mont. –Now that's the kind of an upward trend the Seattle Pacific Falcons would like to be riding every day.
 
Maddie Batiste had 19 kills, Gabby Oddo added 17 and Gabi Stegemoller slammed 13, and SPU steadily moved its hitting percentage higher through all four games on Saturday afternoon to beat Montana State Billings in a Great Northwest Athletic Conference volleyball match.
 
Scores in Alterowitz Gymnasium were 24-26, 25-14, 25-18, 25-16.
 
The Falcons (7-11, 4-6 GNAC) thus concluded the first half of conference play by forging their first two-match winning streak of the season.
 
Junior opposite / outside hitter Batiste made it a double-double with 17 digs and hit .233 for the day. Oddo hit .250. Stegemoller's 13 kills tied her season high, and she hit .400.
 
All of those percentages factored into one of Seattle Pacific's best hitting days of the autumn. After hitting .178 in Game 1, it climbed to .242 in Game 2, then .317 in Game 3 and finally .452 in Game 4.
 
The final percentage of .287, with a season-high 66 kills, trailed only the .351 the Falcons forged in a sweep of Western Oregon on Oct. 5 in Seattle.
 
 

"As the match went on, we got better and better," head coach Abbie Wright said. "The team really went out and made plays happen. They didn't just sit back and hope for something good to happen. We executed well, and that was good for our confidence that we're totally capable of making plays and forcing (other) teams to make plays."
 
Freshman setter Lindsey Lambert accumulated a career-high 47 assists. That was one more than her previous best, set in the Western Oregon match.
 
A back-and-forth first game saw the Falcons take a 21-19 lead. But Billings (6-13, 4-6 GNAC) bounced back to go up 24-22. SPU got even at 24-24, then the Yellowjackets put the final two points on the board.
 
The Falcons rang up seven straight points, the last six of those with senior libero Mallie Donohoe on the serve, to stretch a 13-12 lead to 20-12.
 
At 15-15 in Game 3, Seattle Pacific scored 10 of the final 13 points to go up, two games to one. The Falcons then built a 5-1 lead in the fourth game, and Montana State Billings never came closer than three, the last time at 12-9.
 
Along with those 66 kills, SPU picked up 12 points on blocks, with 20 block assists (totaling 10 points) and two solos.
 
"Our defense was great," Wright said. "We were high over the net, and we had a great presence up there on the front. I was happy with our effort and our eyework, It takes a lot of concentration to be good at blocking."

BY THE NUMBERS
-- The 66 kills topped SPU's previous season high of 61 from match at Northwest Nazarene on Sept. 28.
-- Montana State Billings totaled 37 kills and hit .123 for the day.
-- Maddie Batiste's double-double was her team-leading 11^th of the season. She has 12 for her career.
-- Along with a new career high for assists, Lindsey Lambert tied her career high for total blocks with five.
-- Freshman middle blocker Delaney Dunham put up another set of solid numbers on Saturday: a .312 hitting percentage with six kills and just one error on 16 attacks, and five total blocks (one solo).
-- Mallie Donohoe led Seattle Pacific with 18 digs. Sophomore teammate Erin Gould had 12, exactly double her previous season high and just two short of her career high.
-- Saturday was the first time this season thee Falcons came back to win after dropping the first game. They came into the week 0-9 in that stat category.
 
UP NEXT
SPU begins the second half of conference play at home. Northwest Nazarene comes to Brougham Pavilion on Thursday at 7:00 p.m., followed by Central Washington on Saturday, Oct. 26, at 2:00 p.m. The Falcons beat NNU in four and lost to Central in three, both on the road, the first time through the schedule.

 
NCAA WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL
Saturday, Oct. 19, 2019
Alterowtiz Gymnasium / Billings, Mont.
 
Seattle Pacific 3, Montana State Billings 1
 
Game scores – 24-26, 25-14, 25-18, 25-16.
 
Service aces – SPU 8 (Gould 3), MSUB 5 (Reed 2).
Kills – SPU 66 (Batiste 19, Oddo 17, Stegemoller 13), MSUB 37 (Monck 11).
Assists – SPU 58 (Lambert 47), MSUB 36 (Hashbarger 34).
Digs – SPU 63 (Donohoe 18, Batiste 17, Gould 12), MSUB 50 (Monck 13).
Block assists / solo – SPU 18 / 2 solo (Lambert 4 / 1 solo, Dunham 4 / 1 solo), MSUB 20 / 1 solo (Monck 7 / 0 solo, Taylor 6 / 1 solo).
Hitting (kills-errors-attacks) – SPU 66-23-150—287 (Lambert 4-0-5—800, Stegemoller 13-3-25—400), MSUB 37-21-130—123 (Monck 11-5-28—214).
Attendance – 87
 
Records
Seattle Pacific 7-11, 4-6 GNAC. Montana State Billings 6-13, 4-6 GNAC.
 
Next match
Northwest Nazarene at Seattle Pacific
Thursday, Oct. 24     7:00 p.m.
Brougham Pavilion / Seattle, Wash.