Box Score Irvine, CA - Concordia took advantage of a rare Cal Baptist loss Friday in Hawaii and stepped into the PacWest Conference's drivers seat Saturday night with a hard fought four set win over Azusa Pacific. Set scores were 25-19, 18-25, 25-23, 25-22.
The Eagles (21-2 overall, 12-2 PacWest) overcame an APU squad that won three of its past four matches and pushed Concordia to the limit in their previous meeting, a 5-set slugfest at Azusa. Similar to the road win, the Eagles were led offensively by
Rachel Flynn,
Ellie Ladensack and
Cindy Tran with 15, 11 and 13 kills respectively.
The first two sets were mirror images of each other, with the eventual winner gradually creating separation and then holding on at the end. But it was the third and fourth sets that ensured the crowd got its money's worth.
Concordia responded to the 2nd set loss by taking an early 10-5 lead in the third only to have the Cougars find their way back to tie it up at 14. Flynn and
Hannah Andrews book-ended a much-needed block by Flynn and
Amber Rose to create a 3-point cushion and that would be all the Eagles needed. The teams would trade off big swing after big swing but neither could put together a run as five different Eagles contributed kills to close out the two-point win.
Concordia jumped out to a quick 5-0 lead and pushed it to 10-3 seemingly grabbing control of the match. But, like the 3rd, Azusa would answer, chipping away at the lead until the score was tied at 16. Concordia showed its resilience again, dialing up a short 4-1 burst that included a kill from Rose and a service ace from
Taylor Dennison. The home team would not relinquish the lead again. Like in the 3rd, the teams would trade points the rest of the way but the Eagles cemented away the win on final block by Flynn and Rose.
Dennison continued her run of outstanding defensive efforts, registering 22 digs for her fifth consecutive 20+ dig performance. Flynn's 11 digs made for her seventh double-double of the season and Maddy Deters (14 digs) and Rose (7 blocks) also came up big on the defensive end to hold the Azusa attack to .174% for the match.
Concordia returns to action with a mid-week match-up against Point Loma. First serve is set for 7pm in the CUI Arena.
