The Seattle University women’s volleyball team held a two sets to one lead and threatened to finish off the match late in the fourth set, but Seattle Pacific hung tough and pulled out a 3-2 victory (25-15, 22-25, 32-34, 26-24, 15-11) Wednesday night at the Connolly Center.
Seattle Pacific (8-17) scored five straight points early in the fourth set and held a 21-14 lead before started its comeback with a kill by Libby Graff (). After two Falcon attack errors, three kills and a service ace by Cristin Richards (, ), and three kills by Kaytlyn Dill (), the set was tied at 24-24. The Falcons forced the deciding set thanks to a kill by Nikki Finley and a Redhawk attack error.
There were five ties in the fifth set before Finley put Seattle Pacific ahead for good with a kill. Back-to-back blocks by Robin De Jong and Joelle Perez gave the Falcons a 10-7 lead, but came back to cut its deficit to one at 12-11. Seattle Pacific closed out the set and the match with consecutive kills from Finley and a block by Paige Hoffman and Kylie Johnson.
Richards led with 20 kills and two service aces, plus she also notched 12 defensive digs. Dill finished with 19 kills, six digs, and three block assists, while Jordan Keller () hit .417 for the match with 12 kills, plus she earned five total blocks. Jamie Mellies (, ) collected 54 assists, two aces, ten digs, and seven total blocks, and Shelly Anderson () led the Redhawk defense with 30 digs.
In the final home match of her collegiate career, Graff finished with six kills, a service ace, four digs, and two block assists. Before the match, she was honored by her coaches and teammates with flowers, balloons, and gifts. After the match, Graff and the rest of the volleyball team were recognized by Hui O Nani, the Hawaiian club of .
Finley led all players with 22 kills, plus she earned 11 digs and three block assists. De Jong earned 14 kills and five total blocks, Lindsey Wodrich contributed nine kills and two service aces, and Priscilla Collings added seven kills, three aces, and eight digs to the winning effort. Perez finished with 32 assists and seven total blocks, Johnson also had seven total blocks, and libero Anna Herold was tops defensively with 35 digs.
Although in the end it didn’t seem to change momentum completely, the third set was easily the most exciting of the match, with 20 ties and seven lead changes. Seattle University scored seven consecutive points midway through the set to take a 16-12 lead, but a 7-1 run by the Falcons started the seesaw battle, as neither team pulled ahead by more than one until the end of the set. Seattle Pacific had four chances to end the set, while missed on its first five opportunities before finally ending the set on back-to-back kills by Dill.
Seattle University (9-21) will need to quickly regroup, as the team flies out first thing Thursday morning for the National Transitions Challenge, hosted by Bryant University in Smithfield, R.I. Seattle will face North Dakota and Houston Baptist on Friday, followed by a final match Saturday to determine order of finish in the tournament.