LA MIRADA, Calif. --- Back at home, at last! Biola Volleyball has a chance to get its first home win(s) this weekend as it hosts Academy of Art and Holy Names on Friday night and Saturday early afternoon. The Eagles already have wins over both teams this year with a 3-1 win at Holy Names and dominant 3-0 effort at Academy of Art. It's just the second and third home matches of 2019 for Biola, who's only other time at Chase Gym was an upset loss to Concordia Irvine three weeks ago.

THIS WEEK: vs. Academy of Art (6-11, 4-6 PacWest) - Friday Oct. 18 at 6 p.m.; vs. Holy Names (2-12, 1-7 PacWest) - Saturday Oct. 19 at 3 p.m.

MULTIMEDIA: Biola offers free live video of all home events at portal.stretchinternet.com/biola. Live statistics will be available at that link and also at https://athletics.biola.edu/sidearmstats/wvball/summary.

BIOLA VS ACADEMY OF ART (6-11; 4-6 PacWest): Friday, Oct. 18 at 6 p.m. \\ Live Stats \\ Live Video \\ Last Meeting: Biola wins, 3-0
Biola and Academy of Art meet for the second time this season to open play this week. The Eagles swept the Urban Knights up North just about a month ago in one of the most complete performances of the 2019 season. Biola hit .363 in the match with a season-high kills-per-set mark of 16.3. Sabrina Winslow was the one attacker in double-digits, but it was the Eagles' defense that really made things tough on the Urban Knights. Sami Hover (17), Abby Brewster (13) and Becca Branch (11) combined for 41 digs and held ART U to a .161 hitting day. All-time Biola has a 4-0 record against ART U. The Eagles need to start some positive momentum, having lost three of their last four outings. ART U comes into the matchup riding back-to-back wins (DUC, FPU). Prior to the recent run of good play ART U had lost 15-consecutive sets played, not including the three to Biola. Ashley Pawlak has consistently been the best player for the Urban Knights. She leads the team in both kills (179) and digs (231) and has one PacWest Player of the Week nod this season. Her 664 attack attempts are also the most in the conference this year. The Urban Knights are in their second season under Head Coach Allan McCreary. They've got an all-time record of 7-40 in his tenure.

BIOLA VS HOLY NAMES (2-12, 1-7 PacWest): Saturday Oct. 19 at 3 p.m. \\ Live Stats \\ Live Video \\ Last Meeting: Biola wins, 3-1
Biola closes out its season series with the Holy Names Hawks this week. HNU made Biola sweat a bit up in Oakland earlier this year, taking a 25-16 win in the second set of Biola's four-game win at Tobin Gymnasium. The Eagles had a shaky night, but were still able to close out the match thanks to great play from Sami Hover and a lot of errant attacks from Holy Names in sets three and four. The win brought Biola to 10-0 all-time against the Hawks and retained Biola's perfect record in true road matches in Northern California. Winning that second set was the Hawks' first set victory over Biola in any match since 2000. Sabrina Winslow again was the leading attacker for Biola in that match, hitting 12 kills on a .269 clip. Hover had 23 digs and Vanessa Garcia was the primary setter, ending with 29 assists and four successful kills. Holy Names comes into Saturday's match with six losses in a row. The Hawks fell in three to Point Loma on Wednesday and have to face Concordia Irvine on Friday before the Saturday afternoon matchup in La Mirada. The loss in three at PLNU was a bummer for the Hawks team that took PLNU to five in Oakland earlier this year. Holy Names just added freshman outside hitter Lauren Sera to the mix in that last match. Sera led the team with seven kills in her first appearance of the season (hitting .038). It's been a tough start to the year for this Hawks team that ranks 11th in the PacWest in kills, assists, digs, blocks and hitting percentage.


ABOUT LAST WEEK: Biola had its three-match Hawaiian road trip last week, going 1-2 against the three Hawaiian teams that are all in the top-4 in the conference. Biola got a four-set win at Hawaii Pacific to get at least one W on the toughest trip of the season. Biola hit .179 in the match and held the Sharks to a number more than .100 worse than that. The match was played in what Head Coach Aaron Seltzer described as the "hottest volleyball gym he's ever been in." Bekah Roth and Becca Branch led the attack for much of the trip, including that night, combining for 24 total kills. Biola's freshman middles also had a solid night offensively and defensively as Biola out-blocked HPU, 17-9, to tie a season-high. The other two matches were four-set losses, including a very tough final set in Hilo on the last day that's got this team ready to get back to work and turn things around this weekend.

FANTASTIC FRESHMAN: Abigail Copeland won her first PacWest Conference Freshman of the Week honor for her work during Biola's Hawaiian road trip. A big factor in her winning the award has to be her performance in Biola's win over Hawaii Pacific in the middle game of the trip. She set the new season-high in the PacWest with an 11-block performance, including four huge solo blocks. Copeland added seven kills on just 10 swings to impress on the offensive side as well. For the week she had 16 blocks and 14 kills. She's got 67 total blocks this season, which is second in the PacWest Conference. She does lead the conference in blocks-per-set with a number of 1.26. That puts her 15th in all of NCAA Division II. She's Biola's first PacWest Freshman of the Week this year. It's the Eagles' third total weekly award.

READY TO SURGE: Biola has had the toughest schedule in the PacWest to this point of the season, with all of its previous opponents combining for a 161-105 record (.605) to this point in the season. The Eagles' schedule is 26th in the nation in terms of difficulty. Thankfully, things seem to be easier sledding from here on out. The Eagles' remaining opponents are just 82-117 (.413) this season. The shift begins this week as Biola's two opponents this week are just a combined 8-23 (.258) this season.

IT'S GO TIME: The 2019 Biola Volleyball season has added significance in that it's the Eagles' first as full members in NCAA Division II. Back on July 12 the Biola campus received a call from the NCAA Division II Membership Committee notifying BU of its successful completion of the membership transition process. The change became official as of September 1 and now Biola is officially eligible for NCAA postseason play, national and regional rankings and official NCAA postseason honors for the first time. With no conference tournament, the Eagles will have to finish in the top-8 in the NCAA Division II West Region rankings to be able to get that first taste of NCAA postseason play.

UPCOMING MILESTONES:
Becca Branch - 300 digs (261)
Vanessa Garcia - 1,500 assists (1,341)
Vanessa Garcia - 100 service aces (57) 
Vanessa Garcia - 500 digs (417)
Savannah Hilde - 300 kills (239)
Savannah Hilde - 50 matches (49)
Sami Hover - 100 matches (88)
Sami Hover - 75 service aces (65)
Sami Hover - 1,500 digs (1,314) (school record: 2,097)
Kaitlin O'Brien - 150 assists (147)
Kaitlin O'Brien - 150 service aces (132) (school record: 182)
Bekah Roth - 100 matches (87)
Bekah Roth - 500 kills (510)
Bekah Roth - 100 service aces (75)
Bekah Roth - 300 total blocks (275)
Sabrina Winslow - 800 kills (785)
Sabrina Winslow - 50 service aces (39)
Sabrina Winslow - 500 digs (497)
Sabrina Winslow - 150 blocks (149)

THE ROAD TO 1,100: Biola Volleyball is 1,084-451 (.706) all-time. Biola's averaged 27 wins-per-year in Head Coach Aaron Seltzer's 17-year tenure. This year Biola is on pace for a 15-win season. A good season will put Seltzer within striking distance of 500 when the season is all done. He enters 2019 with an all-time coaching mark of 462-139 (.768).

NEXT WEEK: at Notre Dame de Namur (2-13, 1-7 PacWest) - Friday Oct. 25 at 7 p.m.; at Dominican (1-13, 1-8 PacWest) - Saturday Oct. 26 at 1 p.m.