BURNABY, B.C. – For the second time in nine days, the Seattle Pacific Falcons were on the verge of pulling off a big comeback.
 
Simon Fraser had other ideas.
 
Sarah Brachvogel had 12 kills, and Hannah Hair added four kills with no errors plus a team-leading six blocks, but Simon, playing under its' just-announced Red Leafs moniker, used a 5-0 run to take charge of the fifth set and close out a 3-2 Great Northwest Athletic Conference victory on Saturday night in West Gym.
 
Scores were 26-24, 25-18, 23-25, 23-25, 15-8.
 
On Sept. 2 at the Cal State Los Angeles Invitational, the Falcons lost the first two sets against Biola and were double-match point in the third at 24-22 before storming back to win, 22-25, 26-28, 26-24, 25-16, 15-11.
 
Seattle Pacific (2-8, 0-2 GNAC) was up by a point three times during Set 5, the last of those at 5-4 following a Simon service error.
 
But the Leafs put the next five points in a row on the board. Of those, two came on service aces – part of their eye-popping total of 23 that was just one off the GNAC single-match record. That run finally came to an end on an attack error, making it 9-6. But that was as close as the Falcons came. The Red Leafs delivered two more aces on the way to securing the match.
 
SPU fought back from the brink for most of the night. Down 22-17 in the first set, it came all the way back to 24-24, saving a set point on a Brachvogel kill before Simon Fraser got the final two points.
 
Up 14-13 in the second, the Canadian side put three in a row on the board and stayed comfortably in control for the rest of that one.
 
A five-point streak in Set 3 snapped an 8-8 tie and gave the Leafs a 13-8 advantage. Seattle Pacific climbed all the way into a 19-17 lead before Simon put itself on the brink of winning with a 23-22 advantage.
 
But the Falcons weren't done. Ashley Antoniak, Erin Smith, and Allison Wilks combined on a block for a 23-23 tie, an Antoniak kill made it 24-23, then a Simon Fraser attack error finished the set and kept SPU alive.
 
In the fourth, a five-point Seattle Pacific surge turned a 20-15 deficit into a 20-20 tie. Simon tallied the next three points for 23-20, but the Falcons answered back with another five in a row: A Leafs service errors, a kill by Maddie Pruden, a Leafs attack error, a kill by Brachvogel, and a combined block by Hair and Brachvogel to force a fifth.
 
BY THE NUMBERS
-- Of the seven players who had kills for SPU on Saturday, six of them hit for .200 or better: Hannah Hair's error-free .444 (4 kills-0 errors-9 attacks), along with .389 for Ashley Antoniak (8-1-18), .333 for Sydney Perry (4-1-9), .286 for Maddie Pruden (8-2-21), and .222 for Allison Wilks (9-5-18).
-- The Falcons finished at .233 hitting as a team (48-18-129), its second-highest percentage of the season. The only one better was .266 (54-17-139) at Minnesota Duluth on Aug. 27.
 

-- While Simon Fraser had 23 aces, the Falcons sent 11 across the net, led by senior setter Lindsey Lambert's three.
-- Lambert also had 17 assists, leaving her 12 away from her career 2,000th.
-- With her 10 digs, Lambert made it a double-double, her first of the season and the 18th of her career.
-- Sophomore setter Emily Tulino also recorded 17 assists.
-- Hair's six block assists tied her season high.
-- Junior libero Zoe Shuckhart came up with a season-high 13 digs, just one short of her career high.
-- Simon Fraser sophomore outside hitter Brooke Dexter, slammed 19 of her team's 60 kills – and she got them on .533 hitting (19-3-30).
 
UP NEXT
After 10 straight matches out of town to start the season, the Falcons finally get to play at home in Royal Brougham Pavilion this coming week when the Alaska schools come to town. Fairbanks is in on Thursday at 7:00 p.m., then current No. 16-ranked Anchorage visits on Saturday at 2:00 p.m.
 
 
NCAA WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL
Saturday, Sept. 10, 2022
West Gym / Burnaby, B.C.
 
Simon Fraser 3, Seattle Pacific 2
 
Game scores – 26-24, 25-18, 23-25, 23-25, 15-8.
 
Service aces – SPU 11 (Lambert 3), Simon 23 (Kolof 6, Khademi 6).
Kills – SPU 48 (Brachvogel 12), Simon 60 (Dexter 19).
Assists – SPU 40 (Tulino 17, Lambert 17), Simon 53 (Gentile 29).
Digs – SPU 49 (Shuckhart 13, Lambert 10), Simon 58 (Kolof 16).
Block assists / solo – SPU 23 / 0 solo (Hair 6 / 0 solo), Simon 20 / 2 solo (Hartmann 6 / 1 solo).
Hitting (kills-errors-attacks) – SPU 48-18-129—233 (Hair 4-0-9—444), Simon 60-25-146—240 (Dexter 19-3-30—533).
Attendance – 172.
 
 
Records
Seattle Pacific 2-8, 0-2 GNAC.  Simon Fraser 5-6, 2-0 GNAC.
 
Next match
Alaska Fairbanks at Seattle Pacific
Thursday, Sept. 17     7:00 p.m.
Brougham Pavilion / Seattle, Wash.