ELLENSBURG, Wash. – Here they went once more … Seattle Pacific … Central Washington …
 
… five sets.
 
 

Maddie Pruden had 12 kills, Hannah Hair tied her career high with 11 total blocks on Thursday, and the No. 22-ranked Falcons built an early lead in the deciding fifth set, then stretched it out on the way to defeating No. 18 Wildcats in a Great Northwest Athletic Conference volleyball match, 3-2.
 
Scores in Nicholson Pavilion were 25-14, 14-25, 25-22, 21-25, 15-7.
 
SPU (15-3, 9-1 GNAC) got past Central (12-6, 6-4 GNAC) for the ninth straight time, already the longest winning streak either team has had in the 38-year history of the series.
 
Senior opposite Pruden had just one error on 18 attacks for a career-best .611 hitting percentage. She had a hand in back-to-back points late in the fifth set with a kill that went out off a Wildcats blocker to make it 10-5, then combined with Hair on a block for an 11-5 lead.

"All four of our middles and right-sides did a great job of scoring when we needed points," head coach Jason Rhine said. "Our right-sides did a great job of scoring on their block and slowing them down with our block."
 
The first two sets inside the newly-renovated Nicholson were polar opposites. In the opener, Seattle Pacific played error-free with 11 kills on 30 attacks, and had a pair of 5-0 scoring runs. The second of those runs made it 14-5, and the teams essentially traded points the reset of the way before the Falcons closed it out, 25-14.
 
In the second set, it was Central Washington's turn for big scoring runs: a seven-pointer to go from 7-5 down to 12-7 up, a four-pointer to make it 16-8, and a six-pointer for a 22-9 bulge.

 

"Both teams have a couple of really good servers who can go on long runs," Rhine said. "You find the right rotation, it worked out for us in the first set and worked out for them in the second set."

The Falcons were on the brink of doing the same thing in Set 3 as they did in Set 1. They were up 24-14, but the Wildcats got sideout for 24-15, and Tia Andaya took over the serve.
 
Andaya kept serving, Central kept scoring, getting six consecutive kills, and all of a sudden, it was 24-22. Finally, Erin Smith, playing on the right side, drilled a kill that the Wildcats dug into the net, finally giving the Falcons the last point they needed for a lead of 2 sets to 1.
 
The Wildcats led for most of Set 4, once by as many as five points at 20-15. Seattle Pacific came all the way back to 23-21. A Central kill by Scottie Ellsworth and an ace by Hannah Stires finished off the set and forced a fifth.

"Near the end of the fourth, I thought we had a chance to get it back to deuce and try to pull it out," Rhine said. "It would have been fun to get out of here in four. But (Central) did a great job of holding down the lead, we went five again and that's the story of this match-up for a while."
 
SPU was up 6-5 in the fifth when Pruden started a 5-0 run with a kill. That gave the serve to Sarah Brachvogel. A CWU attack error, a Hair solo block, a Pruden kill, and the combined Hair / Pruden block made it 11-5. The Wildcats got one point back for 11-6, but that was as close as they came.
 
A Pruden kill off a Central blocker set up match point, and a kill by Smith off another Central blocker sealed it.
 
"We played well near the end of that fourth set, and I thought we were in a great mindset in terms of just doing what we knew we could do on offense and defense," Rhine said. "We put a great amount of effort on defense, and offensively, we knew there were middles and right sides where we felt we had the best match-ups. Across the board, those players stepped up big and got a lot of key points when we needed to."
 
BY THE NUMBERS
-- Pruden's 12 kills pushed her past 600 for her career. She now has 610.
 

-- Hannah Hair's previous 11-block match was on Sept. 18, 2021 at home against Central Washington. The national D2 leader, she now has 103 blocks for the season.
-- Hair moved into the No. 6 spot on SPU's all-time career list for block, now with 414. That lifted her past Gaylene MacDonald, who had 412 from 1987-88.
-- The Falcons hit .233 for the match (53 kills-18 errors-150 attacks). That percentage included .367 in the first set (11-0-30), .303 in the fourth (14-4-33) and .385 (7-2-13) in the fifth.
-- Central Washington hit .300-plus in the two sets that it won, but was at minus-.190 in the fifth (3-7-21), and finished at .177 (57-28-164).
-- With the 3-2 outcome, the all-time sets between the two teams are tied at 162-162.
-- This was the fourth straight five-setter between them and the 24th overall. SPU leads that category, 14-10.
-- Allison Wilks had her second straight error-free night, with eight kills on 13 attacks for a .615 percentage. It was her sixth no-errors match of the season.
 
UP NEXT
The Falcons visit Northwest Nazarene on Saturday in Nampa, Idaho. First serve is at noon PDT.


NCAA WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL
Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023
Nicholson  Pavilion / Ellensburg, Wash.
 
(No. 22) Seattle Pacific 3, (No. 18) Central Washington 2
 
Game scores – 25-14, 14-25, 25-22, 21-25, 15-7.
 
Service aces – SPU 8 (Chambers 3), CWU 5 (Stires 3).
Kills – SPU 53 (Pruden 12,Smith 10), CWU 57 (Ellsworth 15).
Assists – SPU 51 (Tulino 22, Chambers 20), CWU 55 (Andaya 30).
Digs – SPU 66 (Lopez 17, Tulino 10, Chambers 10), CWU 63 (Stires 20).
Block assists / solo – SPU 22 / 5 solo (Hair 7 / 4 solo), CWU 16 / 3 solo (Daoud-Hebert 5 / 1 solo).
Hitting (kills-errors-attacks) – SPU 53-18-150—233 (Wilks 8-0-13—615, Pruden 12-1-18—611), CWU 57-28-164—177 (Daoud-Hebert 13-1-19—622).
Attendance – 905.
 
Records
Seattle Pacific 15-3, 9-1 GNAC.
Central Washington 12-6, 6-4 GNAC.
 
 
Next match
Seattle Pacific at Northwest Nazarene
Saturday, Noon PDT
Johnson Sports Center / Nampa, Idaho