THE SCHEDULE
Thursday, Oct. 13                    Seattle Pacific at Alaska Anchorage, 8:00 p.m. PDT
                                                  Alaska Airlines Center / Anchorage, Alaska
                                                  Live Webcast        Live stats 
 
Saturday, Oct. 15                    Seattle Pacific at Alaska Fairbanks, 3:00 p.m. PDT
                                                 The Patty Center / Fairbanks, Alaska
                                                 Live Webcast        Live stats

  
SEATTLE – Back in September, the Seattle Pacific Falcons opened the first half of the Great Northwest Athletic Conference volleyball season on the road against a national top-10 team.
 
They'll start the second half in a similar scenario.
 
The Falcons begin their journey through the back end of the conference schedule this week when they fly north to square off against Alaska Anchorage and Alaska Fairbanks.
 
SPU and the No. 9-ranked Seawolves square off on Thursday at 8:00 p.m. Pacific time inside the Alaska Airlines Center. On Saturday, the meet the Nanooks inside The Patty Center at 3:00 p.m. Pacific.
 
Seattle Pacific opened GNAC play on Sept. 8 at No. 11 Western Washington, with the Vikings winning, 3-0. That was the fifth of five nationally ranked teams that the Falcons played during the first three weeks of the season.
 
SPU (8-9,  6-3 GNAC) comes into the week on a five-match winning and sitting alone in third place in the conference standings.
 
FOLLOW IT LIVE
Both of this week's contests and all remaining GNAC matches will have free live Webcasts and live stats. The Webcasts are available through YouTube. The appropriate links for the Webcasts and live stats can be found at the top of this story.
 




SO WHAT'S THE STORY THIS WEEK?
-- Seattle Pacific has won five straight matches for the first time since early last season when it forged a six-match winning streak.
-- The current streak started after a 3-2 loss to Anchorage in Brougham Pavilion on Sept. 17. The Seawolves took a 2-0 lead, 25-21 and 25-17, before the Falcons bounced back, 25-16, 26-24. In the deciding fifth, UAA used a 6-0 run to take a 10-2 lead, and SPU never came closer than three, including the final score of 15-12.
-- Anchorage's Eve Stephens put her 2021 GNAC Player of the Year and 2002 Preseason Player of the Year talents on display with 14 kills, .341 hitting, three service aces, 11 digs, and five blocks.
-- Speaking of blocks, the Seawolves came up big that day with 29 total and 15 points. The Falcons had 10 total blocks and five points.
-- SPU did have three players with double-digit kills vs. UAA: 14 each for Ashley Antoniak and Maddie Pruden, and 10 for Sarah Brachvogel.
-- Pruden's total matched her career high.
 

-- Sarah Brachvogel's eight kills against Montana State Billings pushed her past 200 for her career. She now has 203.
-- In the home opener on Sept. 15, the Falcons and Fairbanks split their first two sets before Seattle Pacific won the last two.
-- After the Nanooks took the second set, 25-15, to get even at 1-1, Seattle Pacific never trailed again. It scored the first eight points of Set 3 and led all the way in winning, 25-20. The fourth set was tied at 2-2, 3-3, and 23-23.
-- Hannah Hair had just seven kills against UAF, but the last two were on the final two points of the match to snap that 23-23 deadlock.
-- Antoniak set her career high with 17 kills in that match.
 

-- Sophomore setter Emily Tulino is steadily moving toward 1,000 career assists. She has 312 this season to go along with the 544 from her freshman year for a total of 856. She'll need an average of 16 per match in the final nine regular-season matches to get there.
-- That would make it two active SPU setters with four-digit assist totals. Senior Lindsey Lambert earned her 2,000^th on Sept. 15 at home against Fairbanks and now has 2,123.
-- The Falcons will face two of the best servers in the GNAC. Eve Stephens has 42 aces for Anchorage, and Rilee White has 41 for Fairbanks, putting them 1-2 on the conference list.
-- The Falcons split with both Alaska schools last season, each team winning at home.
-- SPU is 4-8 out of town this fall, including 2-5 in true road matches (2-3 on neutral courts). The two true road wins were 3-1 at Northwest Nazarene on Sept. 22 and 3-2 at Central Washington on Sept. 24 to start the current five-match win streak.
 
SCOUTING THE ALASKA ANCHORAGE SEAWOLVES: 19-1, 9-0 GNAC (1^st)
All-time series: UAA leads, 32-30.  Current series streak: UAA won 1.  Last time: UAA 3, SPU 2 (25-21, 25-17, 16-25, 24-26, 15-12; Sept. 17 at Seattle).  Last SPU series win: SPU 3, UAA 0 (25-22, 25-21, 25-22; Oct. 21, 2021 at Seattle).  Seawolves on the Web.
Seawolves in a nutshell: Anchorage comes in on an 11-match winning streak. It's only loss of the season was 3-2 to Florida Southern on Sept. 2 at the Nanook Invitational in Fairbanks. Since then, the Seawolves have dropped a mere five sets – two of those in a 3-2 win at Seattle Pacific on Sept. 17. Senior 6-foot-1 opposite Eve Stephens continues to do a lot of everything, leading the GNAC with 309 kills (4.48 per set, the only player with more than 300 and averaging 4-plus), and she does it on .358 hitting. Stephens also is tops in the conference in serving with 42 aces (0.61). She's far from UAA's only weapon. Senior 5-10 outside hitter Lisa Jaunet is No. 6 in GNAC kills with 210 (3.04), hitting .263. Talia Leauanie, a senior 5-8 defensive specialist, can drop it onto the floor with an ace (28 total, tied with 5-10 senior setter Ellen Floyd) or keep it off the floor with a dig (262 / 3.80, No. 5 in the GNAC.
 
SCOUTING THE ALASKA FAIRBANKS NANOOKS: 13-8, 3-6 GNAC (tie 7h)
All-time series: SPU leads, 41-17.  Current series streak: SPU won 2.  Last time: SPU 3, UAF 1 (27-25, 15-25, 25-20, 25-23; Sept. 15 at Seattle).  Last UAF series win: UAF 3, SPU 1 (20-25, 25-21, 25-20, 25-23; Sept. 23, 2021 at Fairbanks).  Nanooks on the Web.
Nanooks in a nutshell: Fairbanks got off to a fabulous start, going 10-2 in preseason play. But the Nanooks come into this week having dropped four straight. The first two were at home to nationally ranked Western Washington and Anchorage; the last two were road sweeps at Northwest Nazarene and Central Washington. Rilee White, a sophomore 5-toot-11 outside hitter, and Karli Nielson, a sophomore 5-11 outside, are UAF's biggest threats up front. White has 217 kills (2.78 per set) and has delivered a team-high 41 service aces, second-most in the conference behind the 42 of Anchorage's Eve Stephens. Nielson has 211 kills (2.71). They rank No. 10 and 11 on the GNAC list. Fairbanks has two of the conference's best blockers. Elizabeth Jackson, a 6-2 sophomore, has 93 total (1.24 per set) to rank No. 3, and Katrina Head, a 6-0 sophomore, has 81 total (1.07) for No. 6 in that department. They have by far more solo blocks than anyone else in the GNAC: 26 for Jackson, 21 for Head. SPU certainly found out last time how good those two are: Head had nine block assists; Jackson had seven. (Neither one had a solo that day.)
 
NO. 2 OR NO. 1? HAIR IS BOTH
No doubt about it: Hannah Hair has been on quite a tear lately. During SPU's current five-match winning streak, she has hit .538, .438, .533, 688, and .667. Factored into those percentages are 48 kills and just eight attack errors on 75 attacks (.533 in the five matches combined).
 
That has lifted the Falcons' middle blocker up to No. 2 in overall GNAC hitting at .383. She is just a single percentage point behind leader Delaney Smith of Western Oregon at .384.
 
 

But now that every team has played each conference team once, it's fair to take a look at the conference-only stats to see how things stack up. On that list, Hair is the leader with room to spare. Through the first nine of the 18 GNAC matches, she is hitting .a sky-high 446 (70 kills-12 errors-120 attacks). Olivia Fairchild of Western Washington is next at .426 (67-9-136), then WOU's Smith is third at .424 (63-10-125).
 
Speaking of hitting stats, the Falcons began conference play last month with a 60-point gap between their season percentage (.180) and what their opponents were hitting (.240).
 
Now, that's down to a mere eight-point difference: .197 for SPU, .205 for its opponents. In the nine matches since GNAC play began, Seattle Pacific is at .212 and limiting opponents to .176.
 
IT'S COMIN' BACK AT YA
Just seven players in the GNAC are averaging one block per set for the entire season. Allison Wilks and Hannah Hair would like to be the next two to join that elite group.
 
 

Wilks has been coming up big of late. During SPU's winning streak, she has accounted for 25 block assists: five each at Northwest Nazarene and Central Washington seven vs. Western Oregon, three vs. Saint Martin's, and five vs. Montana State Billings. That's an average of 1.32 per set for those five matches, raising her season average to 0.97 (62 total in 65 sets played), currently No. 9 on the GNAC list.
 
Hair has had 18 blocks during those same five matches, an average of 0.95 per set. Her average is now 0.92 (60 blocks in 65 sets), No. 10 in the conference.
 
But it's not just those two getting it done defensively. In the past five contests, Maddie Pruden has 15 (0.79), Sarah Brachvogel has 14 (0.74), and Erin Smith has 11 (0.58).
 
AROUND THE WEST
Alaska Anchorage closed out an undefeated first-half run through GNAC play with road victories at Central Washington (3-0) and Northwest Nazarene (3-1) last week. The Seawolves (17-1, 9-0 GNAC) are one match ahead of Western Washington (13-4, 8-1) heading into the second half of the conference schedule. The Vikings have just one match this week, visiting Simon Fraser.
 
Cal State Los Angeles is all by itself atop the California Collegiate Athletic Association standings. The Golden Eagles (14-4, 9-1 CCAA) have won four in a row since dropping a five-setter to Cal Poly Pomona on Sept. 24. Speaking of the Broncos (14-3, 8-2 CCAA), they had won 14 straight before Cal State San Bernardino (also 14-3, 8-2 CCAA) ended that streak last week with a 3-2 victory last Friday at home, 25-19, 25-17, 18-25, 21-25, 15-11.
 
Chaminade had just one match last week, sweeping Hawaii Hilo to stretch its winning streak to 11 (tied with Anchorage for longest in the West Region) and stay atop the Pacific West Conference table The Silverswords are 14-6, 9-0 Pac West. Still in second is Fresno Pacific (9-5, 8-2).

AROUND THE GNAC
Click on this link for this week's GNAC volleybal notebook. Click on this link for the latest results, polls, and stats.
 
UP NEXT
The Falcons are back home n Brougham Pavilion to take on Central Washington and Northwest Nazarene. The Wildcats are here on Thursday, Oct. 20, at 7:00 p.m. The Nighthawks come to town on Saturday the 22nd at 2:00 p.m.
 
 
 
 
GNAC STANDINGS
                                                      GNAC                    Overall
Alaska Anchorage          9-0           19-1
Western Washington        8-1           13-4
Seattle Pacific           6-3            8-9
Northwest Nazarene        5-4           12-5
Central Washington        5-4           10-7
Simon Fraser              4-5            7-11
Alaska Fairbanks          3-6           13-8
Western Oregon            3-6            7-10
Saint Martin's            2-7           12-7
Montana State Billings    0-9            7-10