Box score (PDF)
 
SEATTLE – There's on-target. And then there's the kind of on-target the Seattle Pacific Falcons displayed Saturday afternoon.
 
Gabby Oddo had 14 kills and hit .364, Gabi Stegemoller slammed 11 kills and tied her career high by hitting .625, and SPU hit a season-high .351 as a team to sweep Western Oregon in a Great Northwest Athletic Conference volleyball match.
 
Scores in Brougham Pavilion were 25-16, 25-21, 25-19.
 
It was the first time this season that the Falcons (5-9, 2-4 GNAC) have topped .300 in the hitting department. They put 52 kills onto the floor in just the three games, and had a season-low 12 attack errors, coming on 114 swings.
 
 

Altogether, Seattle Pacific had five individual hitting marks above .300. In addition to Oddo and Stegemoller, Erin Gould was at .400 (2 kills-0 errors-5 attacks), Maddie Batiste at .333 (11-2-27) and Delaney Dunham at .333 (5-1-12). Stegemoller had just one attack error on 16 attempts, and Oddo just two on 33.
 
"Our passing did a great job, and we served pretty well," said SPU coach Abbie Wright, whose team halted a nine-match homecourt losing streak. "Our hitters stepped up and hit confidently. Gabi Stegemoller played super-smart and showed a ton of maturity. Gabby Oddo and Maddie Batiste swung super confident – they looked high-level today."
 
Getting those opportunities to the hitters on Iron Coaching Court was freshman setter Lindsey Lambert with a career-high 46 assists. That beat her previous high of 40 in a five-gamer against Concordia Irvine on Sept. 6.
 
"Lindsey was so efficient finding the middles, feeling out our offense, and knowing what was going to work," Wright said. "She grew up a lot in this match."
 




The Falcons led for the entirety of Game 1. Western Oregon (3-10, 1-5 GNAC) was still within reach at 17-14, but SPU put the next four points on the board. Lambert was on the serve for three of those, and dropped in one of her career-high four aces.
 
WOU had the upper hand for most of Game 2. The Wolves scored the first three points and stayed between two and four points ahead all the way up to 16-13. Seattle Pacific then ran off six in a row – all on kills, with a pair from Batiste and one each from Oddo, Stegemoller, Gould and Lambert (hers coming on a dump over the net) to go on top for good, 19-16.
 
SPU tallied the first three points of Game 3, and the Wolves never came closer than one, that at 6-5.
 
"We needed that for sure to feel confident that that's what we're capable of," Wright said. "Western Oregon played really well, too. We just put pressure on them and exposed a couple things. They're a young team too, like us."
 
BY THE NUMBERS
-- Seattle Pacific's previous 2019 hitting best was .246 in a four-game loss to San Francisco State on Sept. 7.
-- The last time the Falcons hit better than .300 in a match was .320 (41-9-100) in a three-game win at Saint Martin's last Oct. 18.
-- Western Oregon hit a respectable .222, but had 22 fewer kills than SPU, with 30. The Wolves had just eight errors, but also 15 fewer attacks than the Falcons (114-99).
-- Gabby Oddo had 15 digs to go along with her 14 kills. That was her second straight double-double, her ninth of the season and the 45^th of her career. It also moved her past 900 career digs, now with 909.
-- Oddo moved into the No. 5 spot on SPU's all-time list for points (kills-aces-blocks). She had 15 on Saturday, giving her 1,322. Stephanie Huffman had 1,311.5 from 1997-2000. The next rung up the ladder is No. 4 Nikki Lowell with 1,385.5 from 2010-13.
 
UP NEXT
The Falcons play their next four on the road. That begins on Thursday with a trip to Canada to face Simon Fraser in Burnaby, B.C. First serve is at 7:00 p.m.
 
 
NCAA WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL
Saturday, Oct. 5, 2019
Brougham Pavilion / Seattle, Wash.
 
Seattle Pacific 3, Western Oregon 0
 
Game scores – 25-16, 25-21, 25-19.
 
Service aces – WOU 5 (L. Smith 2), SPU 9 (Lambert 4).
Kills – WOU 30 (DeCarli 8, Crowell 8), SPU 52 (Oddo 14, Batiste 11, Stegemoller 11).
Assists – WOU 30 (Stanton 19), SPU 50 (Lambert 46).
Digs – WOU 43 (Spear 13), SPU 55 (Donohoe 17, Oddo 15).
Block assists / solo – WOU 14 / 0 solo (Crisp, DeCarli, and Omlid all 3 / 0 solo), SPU 4 / 0 solo (Dunham and Hooker both 2 / 0 solo).
Hitting (kills-errors-attacks) – WOU 30-8-9—222 (Crisp 7-1-17—353), SPU 52-12-114—351 (Stegemoller 11-1-16—625).
Attendance – 113.
 
Records
Seattle Pacific 5-9, 2-4 GNAC.   Western Oregon 3-10, 1-5 GNAC.
 
Next match
Seattle Pacific at Simon Fraser
Thursday, Oct. 11     7:00 p.m.
West Gym / Burnaby, B.C.