THE SCHEDULE
Saturday, Nov. 11                Seattle Pacific at Montana State Billings
                                                Alterowitz Gymnasium / Noon PST
                                                Live Webcast        Live stats
 
 
SEATTLE – They've bounced back before. This week, the Seattle Pacific Falcons will have to try doing it again.
 
SPU wraps up the road portion of its regular-season schedule with a trip to Montana State Billings on Saturday. The first serve of the Great Northwest Athletic Conferemce match in Alterowitz Gymnasium is at noon Pacific time.
 
A win would clinch the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA West Region tournament. It also could clinch at least a tie for the regular-season title.
 
The Falcons (19-4, 13-2 GNAC), still ranked No. 18 nationally by the American Volleyball Coaches Association, will be looking to return to the win column after a 3-1 loss at Western Washington this past Saturday, halting a seven-match winning streak.
 
After two of their previous three losses this season, the Falcons immediately turned thing around. On Sept. 2, they fell 3-1 to Biola in the season-opening Seaside Invitational, but came back a few hours later to sweep Cal State San Marcos, 3-0. That started an 11-match winning streak, which WWU ended in Seattle on Oct. 5. Two days later, SPU swept Simon Fraser to start another seven-match run.
 
FOLLOW IT LIVE
All GNAC matches home and away will have free live Webcasts on YouTube, and free live stats. The appropriate links for this week's matches are at the top of this story.
 
WEST RANKINGS – THIS TIME, IN RANKED ORDER
The first set of NCAA West Region rankings came out last Wednesday. But the 10 schools on the list – including Seattle Pacific –weren't actually ranked. They were just listed in alphabetical order, which is how the initial lists have been done for the past few years.
 
This week's rankings are in order. And SPU is in the No. 4 slot.
 
Chaminade occupies the No. 1 position, followed by Cal State San Bernardino at No. 2, then Point Loma Nazarene at No. 3. With the Falcons next on the list, rounding out the top 8 are No. 5 Cal State Los Angeles, No. 6 San Francisco State, No. 7 Cal Poly Pomona, and No. 8 Central Washington.
 
Also in the rankings at Nos. 9 and 10 are, respectively, Sonoma State and Simon Fraser.
 
One more set of rankings will come out next Wednesday, Nov. 15. Then, after the final weekend of action (regular season in the GNAC and Pacific West; conference tournament in the California Collegiate Athletic Association), one last set will be put together to determine which eight schools make the West Regional tournament. The three conference champions receive automatic bids. The five highest-ranked teams from among the non-champions receive at-large invitations.

Click on this link a look at the West Region RPI list.





SO WHAT'S THE STORY THIS WEEK?
-- A win on Saturday would give SPU its first 20-victory season since 2011 (21-7).
-- That would be the 15th year of 20-plus wins in the 38-year history of the program.
-- After last week's road split, the Falcons are 13-3 on out-of-town courts (8-2 in true road matches, 5-1 on neutrals).
-- Seattle Pacific is seeking a season series sweep of Montana State Billings. If that happens, it would be the sixth sweep of the year. The others were Central Washington, Northwest Nazarene, Alaska Anchorage, Alaska Fairbanks, and Simon Fraser.
-- Two weeks ago against the Alaska schools, senior outside hitter Sarah Brachvogel (photo left) had consecutive 13-kill matches for a total of 26. She upped her game last week, with consecutive 16-kill matches at Simon Fraser and Western Washington for a total of 32. She now has double-digit kills in five straight matches and 15 out of 23 for the season.
-- Brachvogel's sixth kill last Saturday was the 500th of her career.
-- When the SPU and Billings met on Oct. 14 in Seattle, the Falcons dropped in 17 service aces on the way to their 3-0 win. Allison Wilks led the way with five; Zoe Shuckhart and Christina Lopez had four each.
-- That tied for the highest total of the season and was two shy of the school-record total of 19 set last Nov. 5 in a 3-1 win at Billings.
-- Montana been a tough place to win a match since the Yellowjackets joined the GNAC in 2007. The Falcons are finally above .500 in Alterowitz Gymnasium at 8-7, but it has taken winning the last three matches there to do that.
-- Seattle Pacific is still the toughest team to hit against in the GNAC at .147.
-- The Yellowjackets know that better than anyone, as they finished at minus-.073 with just 14 kills for last month's match in Brougham Pavilion (14 kills-20 errors-82 attacks).
-- Including that match, the Falcons have kept six opponents below .100 hitting.
-- Hannah Hair remains the top blocker in NCAA Division II at 1.73 per set, with Laura Valentic of Indiana University-Pennsylvania second at 1.45.
-- Same players, but reverse order for total blocks: 152 for Valentic, 145 for Hair.
-- Teamwise, those two schools are about as close as possible for the D2 lead: 2.8148 for Indiana-Pennsylvania, 2.8139 for Seattle Pacific.
-- Senior middle blocker Allison Wilks (photo right) is still in the .400 neighborhood for hitting, starting the week at .418. If she can stay there, she would finish the season as the first .400 hitter in program history.
-- Junior setter Emily Tulino needs just seven more assists for her career 1,500th.
--Coach Jason Rhine is 3-0 against Montana State Billings.
 
SCOUTING THE MONTANA STATE BILLINGS YELLOWJACKETS: 3-22,1-14 GNAC (10th)
All-time series: SPU leads, 36-13.  Current series streak: SPU won 5.  Last time: SPU 3, MSUB 0 (25-18, 25-12, 25-16; Oct. 14 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: When MSUB came to Seattle on Oct. 14, it was a definite high from a 3-2 victory against Western Washington the previous week. But the Yellowjackets have dropped seven straight since then and have won just one set during that stretch. Billings has three players who are almost dead-even in offensive production. Freshman 6-foot-1 middle blocker Julia Gordon has 169 kills, senior 6-foot-1 middle Paiten Langston has 164 kills on a team-high .214 hitting, and senior 5-10 outside hitter Olivia Schwartz has 163. Schwartz led the way in Seattle last month with seven. Langston is also the team's to blocker with 83 (16 solos), an 0.90 average that ranks No. 13 in the GNAC. Kennedy Juranek, a senior 5-9 libero sets the serving pace with 25 aces. Junior 5-4 libero Christine Funk keeps the ball in play with 481 digs, a GNAC-leading average of 5.23 per set.
 
SENIOR DAY IS ALMOST HERE
When they play host to Western Oregon in the regular-season finale on Saturday, Nov. 18, the Falcons will set aside some time prior to the 1:00 p.m. first serve to honor Sarah Day, Brianna Ingram, and Erin Smith on Senior Day.

Day has seen more action this year than during any of her first three seasons. In a 3-1 win at Alaska Fairbanks on Sept. 28, she delivered a career-high seven service aces, the last of which came on match point. She also tied her career high with six kills that night.

Ingram has seen limited action, but has come through with a contribution – either a kill, a block, or both – almost every time she has been on the court. Ingram starred at Pierce College south of Tacoma for two years prior to joining the Falcons in 2022.

Smith has enjoyed the best season of her career, become a regular starter and playing either in the middle or on the right side. She has set career highs in nearly every major statistical category, including 14 kills against Concordia Irvine and nine blocks against Biola.
 

HAIR IS STILL MOVING UP
Another week, another career ladder climb for Hannah Hair.

The senior middle blocker took over the No. 2 spot on SPU's all-time blocking list on Saturday night when she was credited with four during the match at Western Washington. That gives her 456, one more than Anina Winters recorded from 1987-88.
 
The only person ahead of Hair now Tosca Lindberg, and it's likely to stay that way. Lindberg finished her four-year career (1989-92) with a jaw-dropping total of 773. That included Seattle Pacific's single-season record of 289 in 1991.
 
On the GNAC career list, however, Hair still has lots of room to move up. She's now at No. 6 with her 456. Sitting at No. 5 is former Alaska Anchorage star Erin Braun (469 from 2013-16), then it's Central Washington's Sabrina Wheelhouse with 472 from 2014-17 at No. 4, and Northwest Nazarene's Cammy Dranginis with 473 from 2006-09 at No. 3. Any or all of those are well within reach for Hair this year.
 
That leaves No. 2 Madi Farrell of Northwest Nazarene with 559 from 2014-17, and No. 1 Kayleigh Harper of Western Washington with 597 from 2015-19. Since Hair's true freshman season didn't count against her eligibility because the fall 2020 season was canceled by the pandemic shutdown (she was able to play during an abbreviated 2021 spring season), she still has one year left, and is planning to use it in 2024.
 
A FAB FRESHMAN YEAR
Sophia Chambers and Christina Lopez are putting together the kind of season that every freshman hopes to have – but not every freshman gets to have.

Chambers has been a part of the rotation since Match 1 back on Sept. 1, getting onto the court for 84 of the 86 sets. She splits setter duties with junior Emily Tulino, and is typically the No. 2 server in the order (behind Allison Wilks). Her 346 assists rank No. 2 for the Falcons, and she is now the team digs leader with 211.

Lopez, a libero, didn't play at all during the first weekend of the season, then started seeing some limited action, On Sept. 28 at Alaska Fairbanks, she came on at libero at the beginning of the third set and has been the regular at that spot ever since. Prior to then, she was averaging 1.76 digs per set. Now, she's at 3.52 per set, ranking No. 6 in the GNAC.
 
POLLING PLACE
Seattle Pacific remained No. 18 in this week's American Volleyball Coaches Association national poll, which was released on Monday. The Falcons received 283 points in the voting.
 
As it has for most of the season, the top 25 includes six schools from the West Region. Along with No. 18 SPU, there is No. 7 Cal State San Bernardino, No. 15 Chaminade, No. 19 Central Washington, No. 24 Point Loma Nazarene, and No. 25 Cal Poly Pomona. Receiving votes are Cal State Los Angeles (No. 28 overall) and San Francisco State (tied for No. 36).
 
Wayne State of Nebraska (26-1) remained No. 1 with 43 of the 47 first-place votes. Missouri-St. Louis, now the only undefeated D2 team (26-0), picked up the other four firsts and moved into No. 2 ahead of Tampa (24-1), which took its first loss last week, 3-2 at Nova Southeastern.
 
MILESTONES IN THE MAKING
In the making
100th ace               Allison Wilks (has 99)
100th dig               Brianna Ingram (has 99)
200th block           Erin Smith (has 177)
300th block           Allison Wilks (has 280)
400th kill              Erin Smith (has 386)
500th assist          Sophia Chambers (has 346)
500th block          Hannah Hair (has 456)
500th point           Erin Smith (has 481.5)
                            Sydney Perry (Has 474.0)
1,000th point        Hannah Hair (has 967.5)
1,500th assist       Emily Tulino (has 1,493)
 
Made last week
200th block          Maddie Pruden (has 204)
200th dig              Allison Wilks (has 209)
                           Christina Lopez (has 204)
400th kill             Allison Wilks (has 416)
500th kill             Sarah Brachvogel (has 511)
700th kill             Hannah Hair (has 706)
 
NATIONALLY SPEAKING
Among the 278 volleyball program in NCAA Division II, the Falcons are:
 
--No. 2 in blocking at 2.8139 per set (Indiana of Pennsylvania 2.8148).
--No. 5 in total blocks at 242.0 (Indiana of Pennsylvania 304.0).
--No. 32 in lowest opponents' percentage at .147 (Spring Hill .091).
 
Individually:
--Hannah Hair No. 1 in blocks per set at 1.73 (1.45).
--Hair No. 2 in total blocks with 145 (152).

Click on this link to see how the Falcons stack up in all D2 statistical categories. Click on this link to see where other GNAC teams and players are ranked.
 
AROUND THE WEST
With two weeks left in the regular season, four teams – Seattle Pacific (13-2), Central Washington (10-4), Simon Fraser (9-5), and Western Washington (9-5) – are still in the hunt for at least a share of the GNAC title. SPU has the inside track at 13-2 with three to play and can clinch a share with one victory. Two Falcons wins would clinch it outright. One Falcon win and a loss by any of the other three teams (Central, Simon, WWU) would eliminate that team from contention.
 
Cal State San Bernardino is close to wrapping up the California Collegiate Athletic Association title with two matches left prior to the conference tournament. The Coyotes (21-3, 14-2 CCAA) have won 11 in a row and are one match ahead of Cal State Los Angeles (15-9, 13-3 CCAA) The Golden Eagles are the only team still mathematically in the title hunt. After playing Humboldt on Thursday, San Bernardino's regular-season finale on Saturday is at home against Sonoma State, which has dealt the Coyotes two of their three losses: 3-2 in non-conference play, and 3-0 to start conference play.
 
Point Loma Nazarene is in control of the Pacific West Conference standings at 16-0 (19-4 overall). The Sea Lions have won 16 straight and are 2½ ahead of second-place Chaminade (26-3, 14-3 Pac West). That said, Point Loma does have a rugged closing schedule, with its final four matches against current No. 4 Biola, current No. 6 Westmont, current No. 3 Azusa Pacific, and current No. 5 Concordia Irvine.
 
UP NEXT
The regular-season finales will be in Brougham Pavilion next week. Saint Martin's visits on Thursday, Nov. 16 at 7:00 p.m. Western Oregon comes in on Saturday the 18th, with the first serve at approximately 1:05 p.m. following SPU's Senior Day ceremony.
 
 
GNAC STANDINGS
                                                     GNAC             Overall
Seattle Pacific          13-2       19-4
Central Washington       10-4       16-6
Simon Fraser              9-5       14-8
Western Washington        9-5        9-13
Saint Martin's            8-6       15-9
Alaska Anchorage          7-8       15-15
Northwest Nazarene        6-8       10-12
Alaska Fairbanks          6-9       13-16
Western Oregon            3-11       9-13
Montana State Billings    1-14       3-22