AZUSA, Calif. --- Biola and Northwest Nazarene brought new meaning to the term "familiar foe" on Thursday as the two sides met each other for the second time in as many matches with just five days sandwiched in between.
The last meeting took well over two hours and a full five sets to find a victor, this edition was nearly done in just three sets as Biola out-swung the Nighthawks in a big way en route to a 3-1 (25-23, 25-12, 22-25, 25-19) win.
The Eagles took early control of the match with smooth first set win. The two sides traded points pretty evenly through the first 20 points or so until Biola made a run and opened up a 20-14 lead forcing NNU to burn both their timeouts.
The Nighthawks made things interesting with a late charge, but ultimately served back-to-back efforts into the net to give Biola points 24 and 25 in its 25-23 set one win. The Eagles and Nighthawks both hit in the low-.100s in the first set, having trouble landing in the rectangle with consistency. Biola's serve was efficient, with service aces accounting for three of the Eagles' points in the first set, including two from Bekah Roth.
The second set was all Biola from the very outset as BU easily worked its way to a 25-12 set win. The Eagles recorded 16 kills and hit .484 in the set while holding the Nighthawks to just six kills and a .000 percentage.
Brinley Beresford had four of her nine kills in the second set as she was able to work the ball past the blockers with regularity all morning long to set a new season-high in kills.
"Brinley was very effective offensively in the front row," said Head Coach
Aaron Seltzer.
The third set has not been great for Biola all season long, with the team coming into this match 0-3 in that set. That mark moved to 0-4 with a 25-22 loss in this morning's third frame. The Eagles once again showed tremendous resilience even in the losing effort as they battled back from down by as much as 10 to bring the set back within one at 21-22 before coming up just short. Roth began the Eagles' biggest streak of that set with a service ace and then proceeded to serve six more times before NNU could sideout.
The fourth and final set was once again all Biola. The Eagles tied their match-high with 16 kills and saw a great performance from Christina DenBoer lead them to the 25-19 clinching win. The redshirt sophomore had five kills in the set, including the final point of the match, to land at nine kills for the match.
Biola ended the match with 19 more kills than the Nighthawks and had fewer attack errors, resulting in a .130 point advantage in attack percentage. Beresford had 28 assists to go along with her kills and a pair of blocks. The Eagles ended with six service aces to lead in that category, but they also served the ball out 11 times, which was a new season-high.
"I though Bekah had one of her best matches ever, she was very active out there," said Seltzer. "I also thought
Vanessa Garcia had a great game. She set the ball so well today."
Garcia ended with 18 assists, a pair of aces and five digs in a solid all-around effort. Sabrina Winslow led Biola with 13 kills and Sierra Bauder also hit double-digits in another incredible match. The senior middle blocker had 10 kills and made zero errors to hit .625. She was in on three of Biola's seven blocks, too.
Biola improves to 3-1 following the win and gets the PacWest Conference off to a positive start in the West Region Crossover. The toughest test is coming up next as Biola faces No. 9 CSU San Bernardino at 3:15 p.m.
Catch that match live ($) at portal.stretchinternet.com/apu.
