LA MIRADA, Calif. --- Sophomore Nicolette Mather had a career-high 18 kills and posted a .394 attack percentage to lead No. 3 Biola to a 25-21, 25-16, 23-25, 25-23 victory over No. 14 Point Loma Nazarene University in a GSAC match on Saturday night at Chase Gymnasium.

The victory was the eighth-straight victory for the Eagles, who improve to 17-4 on the season. Biola also wraps up the first half of conference play with a 9-1 record—its best mark in the first half since the conference expanded to 11 teams in 2001.

Point Loma Nazarene, which had knocked off a number of good conference teams to move up to No. 14 in the latest NAIA rankings, drops to 12-7 and to 6-4 in the GSAC.

Mather had an impressive evening, recording 18 kills in 33 swings while committing just five errors. Sh recorded five kills in all but one set, posting five kills in seven attacks in the second set alone.

Mather was one of four Biola players to record double-digit kills. Senior Kim Russell and sophomore Christine Douglas each had 14 kills while senior Tavea Hampton recorded 13. Hampton and fellow senior Amy Mosebar combined on all five of Biola's block.

The Eagles were impressive overall in the match, though the Sea Lions refused to go quietly into the night. In the first set, the two teams battled back and forth through the first half until Biola snapped a 17-17 tie with a quick two-point run on back-to-back kills by Russell. The Eagles would stretch the lead up to four at 23-19 on kills by Hampton and Mosebar and an ace by freshman libero Emily Weingartner. The teams would side out the rest of the way with Biola winning 25-21.

The Eagles dominated the second set, jumping out to an 11-5 lead and stretaching it 18-8. Douglas would record four-straight kills at one point in the match with Mather recording three-straight before a PLNU timeout at 17-8. The two teams would exchange points from there as Biola won 25-16 to go up 2-0.

In the third set, Point Loma took control early. Trailing 9-6, the Sea Lions scored six-striaght points to go up 12-9. Biola would fight back and eventually tied the score at 18-18 on an ace by senior Lindsay Dietzen. After the teams traded points for a bit, back-to-back attack errors by the Eagles gave the advantage to Point Loma at 24-23. After a timeout, another error would give the set to the Sea Lions at 25-23.

Biola would commit 13 attack errors in the set and Point Loma seemed to take advantage of each one to build or maintain its lead. However, the Eagles tried not to let the same thing happen in the fourth set.

Biola rolled to an early 17-10 lead, using runs of five and six points go up big. But the Sea Lions continued to plug away and narroed the gap to one at 18-17 with a 7-1 run . Biola would use a bit of a run to go up 23-19, but again Point Loma pulled within one at 24-23 to make things interesting. Mather would end the drama with a big kill to wrap up the match and send the crowd of just under 1,000 fans home happy.

The Eagles did a good job of holding down the NAIA's kill leader, Tabitha Henken. While she had 18 kills to lead the Sea Lions, she had just 4.5 kills per set, nearly one kill per set fewer than she averaged on the season. She hit .230 in the match, committing four errors in 61 swings and adding three blocks.

Two Biola players had double-doubles in the match. Russell recorded 14 kills and added 12 digs for her fifth double-double of the season while freshman setter Gracee Gallarda had 26 assists and 15 digs for her fourth of the year.

Biola returns to action on Tuesday, opening the second-half of conference play with a road match at Hope International University at 7:00 p.m.