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After dropping the first set, the Seattle Pacific volleyball team rallied the rest of the way to improve their season record to 18-3 with a home victory over Alaska-Fairbanks.
The Falcons (18-3, 12-1 Great Northwest) scored a 20-25, 25-20, 25-19, 25-13 victory over the Nanooks (13-14, 6-7).
Sarah Brachvogel led the way for SPU with 13 kills while Hannah Hair had 11 and nine blocks.
Fairbanks came into town on a four-match winning streak, the first three of those coming at home against Central Washington, Western Washington, and Simon Fraser — the three teams that came into the week tied for second place in the GNAC behind Seattle Pacific.
Then Saturday, the Nanooks came out strong in the opening set with 16 kills on .294 hitting, with six of those coming from 6-foot-3 right sider Ella Bines.
“Fairbanks came out and played a really good and complete set and hit almost .300 against us,” SPU coach Jason Rhine said. “They served us tough and played some good defense and made it hard for us to score. They did a great job with a good game plan, but our team also did a great job of responding and even upping our game a little bit in Set 2 and putting a little bit more pressure on what Fairbanks was trying to do.”
The Falcons scored the first three points of that set, and by the fourth set the Falcons had all the momentum.
“It was mostly just playing a little bit sharper and people looking for little chances to do small things well,” Rhine said.
The Falcons wound up with 25 total blocks, their second highest total of the season behind only the 27 at Central Washington on Oct. 19. Along with Hair’s nine, Brachvogel had six, tying her career high and collecting the 100th of her career (now with 105). Allison Wilks and Maddie Pruden each had three.
T-Birds fall
A two-goal rally within 26 seconds early in the third period wasn’t enough as the Seattle Thunderbirds (7-4-0-0) dropped a 6-3 decision at Medicine Hat (9-5-1-0).
Antonio Martorana scored 5:51 into the third period for Seattle and then Coster Dunn made it a one-goal game at 6:17. Medicine Hat, however, put it away with two goals in the last five minutes. Luca Hauf also scored for Seattle.
• Tarin Smith had two goals as Everett (7-5-0-0), on the road, was a 6-2 winner over Spokane (4-5-2-0). Also scoring for the Silvertips were Beau Courtney, Eric Jamieson, Niko Tsakumis and Ben Hemmerling.
MORE VOLLEYBALL
• After losing one tight set, Seattle University (7-16, 2-10 Western Athletic) came back to win two just-as-tight sets for a 16-25, 25-19, 24-26, 26-24, 15-13 home victory over Abilene Christian (10-14, 5-7). Tatum Chase had 11 blocks for the Redhawks and Arianna Bilby contributed 19 kills.
MEN’S SOCCER
• Connor Tollan scored at 78:55 to enable Seattle Pacific (4-7-3, 2-4-2 GNAC) to escape with a 1-1 tie with Western Washington (4-6-5, 1-4-4) at Interbay Stadium. Mitchell Hutter scored for WWU in the 35th minute.
WOMEN’S SOCCER
• Two first-half goals eight minutes apart pushed Seattle Pacific (11-2-4, 8-0-4 GNAC) to a 2-1 home victory over Northwest Nazarene (4-5-6, 2-5-4). Kayla Wallace scored at 27:46 and Kathryn Nyone followed up at 35:56 for the Falcons. The visitors didn’t score until the 65th minute.
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