SEATTLE – It was a celebratory night for the seniors – and a grand night on the stat sheet for one of them.
 
But for the Seattle Pacific Falcons, it was one of those close-but-not-quite kind of nights.
 
Maddie Batiste picked up 1,000^th career point on Saturday, and SPU went toe-to-toe with Western Washington most of the way before the No. 16-ranked Vikings pulled out a 3-1 volleyball victory in Brougham Pavilion.
 
Scores of the Great Northwest Athletic Conference contest were 24-26, 25-18, 25-19, 25-23.
 
Senior outside hitter Batiste finished with eight kills, two service aces and two block assists, good for 11 points. She started the night with 991, needing just nine to hit 1,000. She is the 18^th player in the 36-year history of the SPU program to reach a grand.
 
Sophomore middle blocker Hannah Hair led the Falcons with 10 kills in the final home match of the season. Sophomore Allison Wilks hit .438 with eight kills and just one error on 16 attacks.
 
 

SPU (14-9, 10-6 GNAC) scored the first four points of the match and never trailed in Set 1, although Western (20-4, 16-1 GNAC) did come back to tie it at 23-23 and 24-24. Then, a kill by Erin Gould and one by Batiste – who were honored in a Senior Night ceremony prior to the match, along with 2020-21 graduate Gabi Stegemoller – put the final two points on the Falcons' side of the board.
 
Seattle Pacific was up 9-7 in the second set when WWU went on a 6-0 scoring run to go ahead for good. Calle Heilborn was on the serve for the last five points of that, which included back-to-back aces.
 
Midway through the third, a 4-1 surge took the Vikings from 12-11 down to 15-13 up, and they stayed in front the rest of the way.
 
Seattle Pacific edged in front during the fourth set, 18-16. It was tied at 20-20 when Western Washington put four of the next five on the board for triple-match point at 24-21. The Falcons saved two of those points before the Vikings closed it out.
 
"We had some good momentum in the first game, then Western came on a little run. We still won, but I think it took us a couple games to recover, even though we won the first game," head coach Abbie Wright said. "It was hard for us to get it back and kind of click again. But you live and you learn, and we have to adjust for next time."
 
THEY RALLIED AND RALLIED AND RALLIED
The match featured some high-caliber volleyball from start to finish, with numerous lengthy rallies. A couple of the more dramatic ones:

• With SPU up 14-10 in the first set, the teams combined for nine attacks and seven digs before the point ended in Western's favor on a combined block.

•  The fourth set was tied at 20-20 when Allison Wilks of the Falcons served. What followed was a combined 14 attacks and 14 digs. Western's Calle Heilborn finally ended it with a kill.

 
"We're getting there," Wright said. "It's just kind of putting it all together. Western Washington is pretty composed and they figured out a way to score and win long rallies. It's just a learning process."
 
BY THE NUMBERS
--The loss was SPU's first on its home court this season after 11 straight victories. The final mark of 11-1 is the third-best mark in program history. The only two better were 11-0 in 2000 and 10-0 in 2006. And, this was just the fourth team in 36 seasons to win that many at home.
 

-- Junior setter Lindsey Lambert recorded her second straight double-double, this one with 13 assists and 10 digs. She now has four for the season and 13 for her career.
-- The Falcons hit .189 for the match (49 kills-22 errors-143 attacks). They were especially effective during the first two sets at .308 in the first (16-4-39) and .235 in the second (13-5-34).
-- The match featured the GNAC's No. 3 hitter and blocker in SPU sophomore Hannah Hair against the No. 1 hitter and blocker in Western junior Olivia Fairchild. Call it mostly a draw: Hair had 10 kills and just one error on 23 attacks for a .391 percentage and two block assists. Fairchild had 10 kills and three errors on 23 attacks for a .304 percentage and two block assists.
 
UP NEXT
SPU finishes the season this coming week with a trip to Central Washington on Thursday at 7:00 p.m. and then to Northwest Nazarene next Saturday at noon Pacific time.

 
 
NCAA WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL
Saturday, Nov. 13, 2021
Brougham Pavilion / Seattle, Wash.
 
(No. 16) Western Washington 3, Seattle Pacific 1
 
Game scores – 24-26, 25-18, 25-19, 25-23.
 
Service aces – WWU 10 (Heilborn 5), SPU 5 (Batiste 2, Tulino 2).
Kills – WWU 57 (Gunterman 17), SPU 49 (Hair 10).
Assists – WWU 55 (Aleaga 50), SPU 47 (Tulino 29, Lambert 13).
Digs – WWU 60 (Heilborn 19), SPU 62 (Gould 16, Batiste 12, Tulino 10).
Block assists / solo – WWU 20 / 0 solo (Roetcisoender 8 / 0 solo), SPU 16 / 0 solo (Wilks 6 / 0 solo).
Hitting (kills-errors-attacks) – WWU 57-17-150—267 (Roetcisoender 103-20—350), SPU 49-22-143—189 (Wilks 8-1-156—438).
Attendance – 225.
 
Records
Seattle Pacific 14-9, 10-6 GNAC
Western Washington 20-4, 16-1 GNAC.
 
 
Next match
Seattle Pacific at Central Washington
Thursday, Nov. 18     7:00 p.m.
Nicholson Pavilion / Ellensburg, Wash.