LAST WEEK: W vs. Northwest Nazarene, 3-1; L vs. #9 CSU San Bernardino, 1-3; L vs. #15 Western Washington, 0-3; W vs. Sonoma State, 3-0. (2-2 weekly record; 4-3 overall record)

THIS WEEK: vs. Fresno Pacific (0-8) - at home Saturday Sept. 8 at 3:00 p.m.

MULTIMEDIA: Live video and live stats will be available at portal.stretchinternet.com/biola. The first home match of the season marks the return of Josh Banker to the Biola broadcast booth. Send him an email shoutout (to be read on air) during the match at eaglesbroadcast@gmail.com.

BIOLA (4-3) vs. FRESNO PACIFIC (0-8): Saturday Sept. 8 at 3:00 p.m. \\ Live Stats \\ Live Video
Things slow down a little bit this week for Biola Volleyball, with just one match rather than three or four. However, it's an important one as the Eagles begin their PacWest Conference schedule with their first home match of the season. Biola hosts the Sunbirds for a midday Saturday contest and look to improve their all-time record against the Sunbirds to 27-46. All but one of those contests came before Biola and FPU were members of the NCAA Division II and PacWest Conference, back when the Sunbirds spent years as an NAIA powerhouse and won six national championships (including four in a row from 2007-10). Biola is 1-0 against FPU in the NCAA Division II era, winning 3-1 in the teams' only meeting last season. The Eagles and Sunbirds have had opposite starts to the season in 2018, with Biola managing a record over .500 against really stiff competition at preseason tournaments and FPU entering still looking for their first win. The Sunbirds and Eagles have one shared opponent, No. 9 CSU San Bernardino. Both teams lost to the Coyotes, with FPU falling 3-0 and Biola going down 3-1. The Sunbirds are in their third season under Head Coach Tracy Ainger-Schulte and have a 23-38 overall mark in those seasons. Senior Opposite Hitter, Carley Bock has been the Sunbirds' best player this season, averaging 2.56 kills-per-set and hitting just about .200. It will be a Carley/Karly battle as both teams' senior OPP try to outperform each other inside of Chase Gym.

ABOUT LAST WEEK: 2-2 was about what was expected from last week's NCAA Division II West Region Crossover tournament. The Eagles were thrust into the tournament's top pod and had to go head-to-head with a pair of top-15 teams and just couldn't compete. However, Biola did well to handle its business convincingly against the two teams it was expected to beat last week and did take one set against No. 9 CSU San Bernardino. It was a tough week for the PacWest, with those teams going a combined 16-32 against foes from the CCAA and GNAC. Biola ended its week with a 3-0 sweep over Sonoma State and got dominant performances from Sierra Bauder, Christina DenBoer, Karly Dantuma, Kaitlin O'Brien and Sami Hover, which is all good things.

ROAD TO 1,000 (AND THEN SOME): Senior opposite hitter Karly Dantuma comes in sitting on 968 career kills. She's is a major player in the Biola offense this year and should be able to cross the 1,000 career kill plateau within the first third of the season. If she can hit the mark, she'd be just the 15th student-athlete in the 50-year history of the program to reach it. Dantuma is blocking at the best rate of her career right now and has a chance to eclipse 300 career blocks (247). If she does that she'd be just the fourth player in Biola history to have 1,000+ kills and 300+ blocks (Becky Miller, Amy Weststeyn, Michelle Warkentin).

SELTZER'S SEVENTEENTH: Seltzer is in his 17th season at the helm of the BU Volleyball squad. He's the winningest coach in program history with an all-time mark of 436-136 (.762). He helped this team make an immediate impression in its first NCAA Division II season by leading the Eagles to a 28-7 overall mark, which would've been good enough to qualify Biola for the NCAA West Region Championship, if the Eagles were postseason eligible. Volleyball was the only program at Biola that would've qualified in 2017-18.

HITTING THE MARK: Senior middle blocker Sierra Bauder is hitting .391 through the first seven matches of the season. She ranks third in the PacWest Conference and would be top-50 in all of NCAA Division II. She is off the the best start of her three-year Biola career in terms of hitting percentage and kills-per-set (2.39). She's blocking at a lower rate than past years, especially last year when she was at nearly 1.3 blocks-per-set, but you can expect that to pick up as she reaches conference season. In 2017 she recorded nearly 60 percent of her total blocks during PacWest play.

THIRD SET TROUBLES: The third set of matches has been a stumbling block for this team early on this year. The Eagles are just 1-6 in third sets this season and had not won a single third set until their 25-11 win in their 3-0 sweep over Sonoma State on Saturday. Biola's been outscored 164-151 in third sets this year. Look for them to pick up their second third set win of the year this week as they face a FPU team that's been swept six times this season and is 1-7 in third sets.

ACE IS THE PLACE: Biola servers have 37 service aces this season. Twenty-four of those 37 come from two players, Bekah Roth (13) and Katilin O'Brien (11). Roth currently leads the PacWest in that category and O'Brien is fourth (in aces-per-set). They are the only players in the conference with double-digit totals at this point in the season. Roth's 0.46 aces-per-set total is just about double her average from her freshman season in 2017 (0.25). O'Brien recorded her 100th career service ace vs. Sonoma State, becoming the 22nd player in Biola history to reach that mark. Abbie Wright holds the program recond at 182 (0.36/set). O'Brien's averaged 0.34/set through her first 2+ seasons.

NEXT WEEK: at Point Loma (9/11 at 7:00 p.m.); at Academy of Art (9/14 at 7:00 p.m.); at Holy Names (9/15 at 3:00 p.m.)