SEATTLE – Beating Central Washington on the volleyball court twice in one season is a tough enough task.
 
Beating them twice in one day is even tougher.
 
But, matched up against a program that is always in the upper echelon of the Great Northwest Athletic Conference and in the picture for making the NCAA Tournament …
 
… that's exactly what the Seattle Pacific Falcons did on Saturday.
 
 

Maddie Batiste had 31 kills and 29 digs in two matches combined, and Hannah Hair added a combined 22 kills and 15 block assists as SPU took a pair contests from the Wildcats in Brougham Pavilion.
 
The Falcons won the first one in four, 21-25, 25-13, 25-12, 25-22. They then finished on top of the back-and-forth second one, 25-23, 21-25, 25-21, 25-27, 15-6.
 
Senior outside hitter Batiste had 16 kills and 14 digs in the opener, hitting .289. She came up with another 15 kills and 15 digs in the second half of the doubleheader.
 
Freshman middle blocker Hair had 10 block assists in the opener to go along with eight kills and .316 hitting. Then, it was 14 kills on .290 hitting and five block assists in the nightcap.
 
 

"It feels good to get a win against an awesome program like that," said head coach Abbie Wright said, whose team improved to 6-3. "We need as many reps as we can get, and today was a great time for that to play in that kind of an environment.
 
"You can learn from a loss and from a win. But it feels good to get rewarded for our efforts," Wright added. "You have something statistically to back what we're doing. There was nothing easy about this. Going five in the second match, I kind of expected something like that. For us getting to see that results can swing in our favor, it was a much-needed win for us."
 
MATCH 1
Central Washington scored the first three points of the match, and SPU never gained so much as a tie in the opening set. But the second one was all Falcons, as they put together a 7-0 spurt to turn a 2-1 deficit into an 8-2 lead. Of those seven points, three came on blocks – and Hair factored into all three, teaming with fellow freshman Erin Smith on the first, then with Batiste on the second and third.
 
 

Seattle Pacific jumped to a 5-0 lead in the third. Sophomore Ashley Antoniak, who was on the serve for the last six of those seven straight points in Set 2, was serving again to start this one. The Falcons eventually built the lead all the way to 11-2, hitting .310 for the set while limiting Central Washington to minus-.143.
 
The Wildcats built an early 9-3 advantage in the fourth, thanks in part to a 5-0 run to expand their 4-3 lead. SPU, down 15-13, rang up four straight to take a 17-15 edge. The Falcons edged ahead for good with three in a row to go from 19-18 behind to 21-19 ahead.
 
Seattle Pacific gained triple match point at 24-21 on a kill by Hair that went off a Central Washington blocker. The Wildcats fought off the first one, but freshman Lindsay Rosenthal converted the next try with a kill. It deflected off a CWU blocker and went out. The call was challenged, but was upheld on video review.
 
MATCH 2
SPU overcame a 21-18 deficit in the opening set with a run of four consecutive points. The Wildcats got four of the final five points to take Set 2.
 
The Falcons built a quick 8-3 advantage in the third. CWU got as close as one at 8-7, but never tied or took the lead.
 
The Wildcats seemed on their way to winning the fourth, with triple set point at 24-21. But Seattle Pacific rang up four in a row – a Central attack error, a Batiste service ace, a block by Rosenthal and then a kill by Rosenthal – to gain a match point at 25-24. Central answered with the last three points to force a deciding fifth set.

Down 2-1, SPU put five straight on the board. Three of those points came on combined blocks, and Pruden had a hand on all of them, with Hair helping on the first two and Rosenthal on the last one. Central Washington got as close as three at 8-5.
 
Then at 11-6, the Falcons tallied the final four points, clinching it on a combined block by Rosenthal and Smith.
 
"We were able to get first contact on the ball, and that set the tone – we didn't get stuck in a lot of long, drawn-out plays," Wright said of the Falcons taking charge of the fifth set. "It was taking care of that first contact and we were able to cycle through from there, whether it was serving or passing."
 
BY THE NUMBERS
 

-- Redshirt freshman opposite Maddie Pruden logged double-digit kills in both matches, with 11 in the opener and 10 in the nightcap.
-- Freshman outside hitter Lindsay Rosenthal chipped in 14 kills and eight block assists for the afternoon.
-- Sophomore setter Lindsey Lambert recorded back-to-back doubles: 34 assists and 12 digs in the first one, 37 assists and 14 digs in the second.
-- Hannah Hair's double-digit block total in the opening match was the first by a Falcon since Oct. 5, 2017, when Nicole Tchabanov had 10 in a home match against Northwest Nazarene. Hair had nine total in each of the two season-opening matches at Northwest University on Feb. 27.
-- The back-to-back double-doubles gave Maddie Batiste three for the season and 19 for her career. Lambert's two gave her five for the season and 10 for her career.
 
UP NEXT
The Falcons will return to action with a single match against Northwest Nazarene next Saturday at 1:00 p.m. in Brougham Pavilion.

 
NCAA WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL
Saturday, April 3, 2021
Brougham Pavilion / Seattle, Wash.
 
MATCH 1
Seattle Pacific 3, Central Washington 1
 
Game scores – 21-25, 25-13, 25-12, 25-22.
 
Service aces – CWU 4 (Shymanski 3), SPU 4 (4 players with 1).
Kills – CWU 37 (Payne 9), SPU 51 (Batiste 16, Pruden 11).
Assists – CWU 35 (Kirby 14), SPU 48 (Lambert 34).
Digs – CWU 62  (Fisk 10, Stires 10), SPU 68 (Batiste 14, Dawson 13, Lambert 12).
Block assists / solo – CWU 6 / 2 solo (Shymanski 1 / 1 solo, Daoud-Hebert and Erickson 2 / 0 solo), SPU 24 / 0 solo (Hair 10 / 0 solo).
Hitting (kills-errors-attacks) – CWU 37-27-138—.072 (Vasquez 8-1-31—.226), SPU 51-20-146—.212 (Hair 8-2-19—.316).
 
 
MATCH 2
Seattle Pacific 3, Central Washington 2
 
Game scores – 25-23, 21-25, 25-21, 25-27, 15-6.
 
Service aces – CWU 7 (Remsberg 4), SPU 5 (Batiste 2, Lambert 2).
Kills – CWU 52 (Vasquez 14), SPU 62 (Batiste 15, Hair 14, Pruden 10).
Assists – CWU 49 (Lambrecht 20), SPU 57 (Lambert 37, Ibale 16).
Digs – CWU 87 (Stires 30), SPU 96 (Dawson 19, Batiste 15, Rosenthal 15, Lambert 14).
Block assists / solo – CWU 16 / 0 solo (Yamashita, Gibbon, Smith all 4 / 0 solo), SPU 18 / 0 solo (Hair 5 / 0 solo).
Hitting (kills-errors-attacks) – CWU 52-35-203—084 (Borek 3-0-8—375), SPU 62-32-193—155 Wilks 3-1-5—400, Smith 6-1-14—357, Hair 14-5-31—290).