THE SCHEDULE
Saturday, Oct. 29               Seattle Pacific at Montana State Billings, 11:30 a.m. PDT.
                                     Alterowitz Gymnasium / Billings, Mont..
                                     Live Webcast        Live stats
 
 
SEATTLE – Their first trip was a 3¼-hour, 1,391-mile plane ride to Minnesota..
 
Their last one is a 1¾-hour, 664-mile flight to Montana.
 
Some two-plus months and 17 away matches later, the Seattle Pacific Falcons are off for their final road stop of the 2022 volleyball season. This one takes them to Big Sky country and a visit to Montana State Billings for a Great Northwest Athletic Conference match on Saturday.
 
The first serve inside Alterowitz Gymnasium is at 11:30 a.m. Pacific time.
 
SPU (11-12, 9-6 GNAC) is coming off a successful two-match trek last week, scoring a 3-1 victory at Saint Martin's on Thursday before a 3-0 win at Western Oregon last Saturday.
 
FOLLOW IT LIVE
This week's contest 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.
 
POSTSEASON SIGNIFICANCE
Through the first 10 weeks of the season, Seattle Pacific has defeated some quality teams, including Winona State, Biola, Central Washington (twice) and Northwest Nazarene, all of whom have been ranked or received votes. Their overall strength of schedule has ranked either No. 1 or No. 2 in the West Region all season.
 
But just to get into the conversation for a possible postseason berth, the Falcons need at least an overall .500 record. They are one match below that at 11-12, giving added importance to Saturday's match at Montana State Billings.
 
The last of the three regular-season sets of West Region rankings comes out next Wednesday, Nov. 9. After next week's conclusion of the GNAC and Pacific West Conference regular seasons and the California Collegiate Athletic Association tournament, the regional ranking committee will meet one final time to determine which eight schools will make the West tournament: the three conference champion automatic qualifiers, plus five at-large selections.
 




SO WHAT'S THE STORY THIS WEEK?
-- The Falcons are aiming for their fourth season series sweep. They previously took both matches from Central Washington, then last week added the Saint Martin's and Western Oregon to that collection.
-- SPU scored a 3-0 victory against Billings on Oct. 8 in Seattle, 25-15. 25-22, 25-20.
-- That was the fifth match of a five-match winning streak.
--The Falcons have split their six matches since then, and are coming in on a two-match winning streak.
-- Seattle Pacific is 6-10 away from home, 4-7 in true road matches, and 4-4 in GNAC road matches.
-- The Falcons have won the last two times in Alterowitz Gymnasium: 3-0 last season and 3-1 in 2019. (The 2020 season was canceled.) The last Yellowjackets' win was 3-2 in 2018.
 

-- Middle blocker Hannah Hair had a monster day against the MSUB in Seattle with an error-free performance of 10 kills on 15 attacks, plus six blocks.
-- That was the third of her four no-errors matches this season. Her most recent one was last Saturday in a 3-0 sweep at Western Oregon when she went 9-0-14.
-- SPU comes into Billings off its best hitting performance of the year: .351 (43-9-97).
-- That was its third .300-plus. One of the others was .321 against Billings in Seattle (44-10-106).
-- The first-set victory at Western Oregon last Saturday was just the sixth time the Falcons have won the opening set. They are 6-0 in those matches.
-- They dropped the first set at Saint Martin's, but bounced back to win, the fifth time that has happened this season.
-- Hair had a solo block at Western Oregon. She now has at least one in four of the past five matches.
-- Sophomore setter Emily Tulino is 41 assists away from her career 1,000th.
-- Hair, Allison Wilks, Abigail Cunningham, and Sarah Brachvogel remain among the GNAC's top 10 on different statistics lists. Hair is No. 8 in hitting (.341) and No. 10 in blocks (0.99, with 88 blocks in 89 sets). Wilks is No. 8 in blocks (1.00, with 89 in 89 sets). Cunningham is No. 6 in digs (3.77). Brachvogel is No. 7 in service aces (0.39 / 25 total).
 
SCOUTING THE MONTANA STATE BILLINGS YELLOWJACKETS: 7-17, 0-15 GNAC (10^th)
All-time series: SPU leads, 34-13.  Current series streak: SPU won 3.  Last time: SPU 3, MSUB 0 (25-15, 25-22, 25-20; Oct. 8, 2022 at Seattle).  Last MSUB series win: MSUB 3, SPU 1 (25-22, 25-23, 21-25, 25-19; Nov. 14, 2019 at Seattle). Yellowjackets on the Web.
Yellowjackets in a nutshell: Billings came agonizingly close to nabbing its first conference win last Saturday at Saint Martin's, taking the first two sets. It eventually went into the fifth, and the Yellowjackets built a 12-6 lead, and had a match point at 14-13. But the Saints came back to take it, 16-14. MSUB went 6-1 in preseason play, but has just one victory since then, a non-conference sweep of Rocky Mountain on Sept. 27. Leading the way on offense is freshman 6-foot-2 outside hitter Caty Havekost with 213 kills, an average of 2.63 per set. She tied for the team lead with nine against SPU in Seattle. Jahsita Fa'ali'I a junior 5-9 outside, averages 2.45 per set (186 total) and leads the team with 28 service aces. Paiten Langston is a solid hitter. The junior 6-1 middle blocker is at .286 (No. 9 in the GNAC) with 131 kills, and is the Jackets' top blocker with 65, including 12 solos. But right behind her is senior 6-2 middle Hannah Hayden with 63 blocks (nine solos). Sophomore 5-4 libero Christine Funk keeps the ball in play with 337 digs, a 4.01 per set average that ranks No. 4 in the conference.
 
HASN'T HAPPENED IN A WHILE
Finishing a match with fewer than 10 attack errors certainly doesn't occur on a regular basis.
 
But Seattle Pacific pulled it off last Saturday at Western Oregon, with just nine errors on 97 attacks. With 43 of those attacks going for kills, the Falcons wound up with a season-best .351 hitting percentage.
 
The last time SPU finished in single digits for errors was Oct. 16, 2018 in a 3-0 sweep at Saint Martin's. On that night, the Falcons had 41 kills and nine errors on 100 attacks for a .320 hitting percentage.
 
Since then, exactly 100 matches went into the book prior to Saturday's performance in Monmouth.
 
The previous low for errors this season was 10 at home against Saint Martin's on Oct. 1 and also against Montana State Billings on Oct. 8.

 

 










ROAD WARRIORS
Saturday will be Seattle Pacific's 17th out-of-town match this season. Allowing for the fact that two preseason matches were played in St. Paul, Minn., two were played in St. Cloud, Minn., and four were played Los Angeles, that accounted for three distinct round trips: Seattle to St. Paul and back, St. Paul to St. Cloud and back, and Seattle to Los Angeles and back.
 
Then there were separate round trips (some via air, some on the highway) to seven of SPU's nine conference opponents. The Alaska trip involved a flight to Anchorage, one to Fairbanks, and then one from Fairbanks back to Seattle.
 
Add them all up, going both directions, and you get …
 
… 11, 483 miles.
 
Air mile distances are usually shorter than highway miles – sometimes significantly so. For instance, highway miles to St. Paul would be 1,665. Air miles are 1,391. The air miles for the Alaska trip totaled 3,229, with 1,435 from Seattle to Anchorage, 261 from Anchorage to Fairbanks, and 1,553 from Fairbanks to Seattle. Making that same trip in a van would be 2,282 to Anchorage, 380 from Anchorage to Fairbanks, and 2,151 from Fairbanks to Seattle for a total of 4,813.
 
Either way, the Falcons earned their "road warrior bona fides" this fall.
 
RECORD-BREAKING SMART
Seattle Pacific set a GNAC record last week by placing 15 players on to the All-Academic team. That's more than any school has ever had for volleyball. The previous record was 14, set and shared last fall by SPU and Central Washington.
 
Leading the way for the Falcons were third-time honorees Ashley Antoniak, Paige Dawson, Austin Ibale, and Lindsey Lambert.
 
Among the 15 Falcons, junior Allison Wilks has the highest grade-point average with a 3.94. She is a nursing major.
 
AROUND THE WEST
Alaska Anchorage and Western Washington essentially have wrapped up the top two spots in the GNAC. Anchorage is 13-1 in conference play (23-2 overall) and WWU is 12-2 (17-5 overall). The closest teams to either of them are Northwest Nazarene, Central Washington, and Seattle Pacific, all at 9-6. UAA and Western each have four matches left, so the conference crown is still very much up for grabs. If a tiebreaker should happen to come into play, the Seawolves have the advantage by virtue of sweeping the season series from the Vikings.
 
Sonoma State thrust itself into the postseason conversation with a pair of huge victories in California Collegiate Athletic Association play last week. On Thursday, it defeated Cal Poly Pomona, 3-1, then beat Cal State San Bernardino by the same score on Saturday. Meanwhile, Cal Sate Los Angeles won both of its matches and at 14-2 (19-5 overall) has a two-match lead on Pomona and San Bernardino (both 12-4 CCAA, 18-5 overall). Sonoma is tied with Cal State East Bay for fourth with identical 11-5 CCAA, 18-6 overall marks. This is the final week of regular-season play prior to next week's conference tournament.
 
Chaminade is the team to catch in the Pacific West Conference. The SIlverswords (14-1, 19-7 overall) have a 1½-match lead on second-place Point Loma Nazarene (13-3, 18-6 overall).  They play their final home contest of the year this week, hosting Hawaii Pacific (2-13, 2-19 overall) on Wednesday, then finish the regular season with a four-match Northern California road trip. The Pac West, like the GNAC, does not have a conference tournament, awarding its automatic NCAA berth to the regular-season champ.

AROUND THE GNAC
Click on this link for a look at this week's GNAC volleyball notebook. Click on this link for a look at results, polls, and stats.
 
UP NEXT
The regular season concludes next week at home for the Falcons. They host Simon Fraser on Thursday, Nov. 10, at 7:00 p.m. Then Western Washington comes to town on Senior Day Saturday, Nov. 12, at 2:00 p.m. SPU will salute seniors Ashley Antoniak, Paige Dawson, Austin Ibale, Lindsey Lambert, Maddie Pruden, and Lindsay Rosenthal.
 
 
 
GNAC STANDINGS
                                                  GNAC             Overall
Alaska Anchorage        13-1        23-2
Western Washington      12-2        17-5
Northwest Nazarene       9-6        16-7
Central Washington       9-6        14-9
Seattle Pacific          9-6        11-12
Simon Fraser             7-7        10-13
Alaska Fairbanks         5-9        15-11
Western Oregon           5-9         9-13
Saint Martin's           3-11       13-11
Montana State Billings   0-15        7-17