Red-Shirt Sophomore Hailey Gaines
Box Score Oakland, CA - The end of a 5-day road swing, coming off of a day off, the academic pressures of taking tests on the road, an opponent that is struggling, a gym that is approaching 95 degrees after record temperatures over the weekend. Any combination of these could result in an unfocused effort or lackluster level of play for a team trying to win its third match of the weekend and 7th straight road match of the season. With every one of these influences coming into play this evening it could have been easy for Concordia's match against Holy Names to take on a significantly different feel than it did. In the end, the visiting Eagles overcame each hurdle, and, with all fourteen players making contributions, walked away from Tobin Hall on the HNU campus with their second consecutive sweep of the weekend, winning 25-18, 25-12, 25-11.
Set one seemed to start out in slow motion for both teams, but tough serving and timely swings by the Eagles provided a 6-1 run early on and a 5-point run in the middle of the set. A balanced attack with kills from all six front row players was the difference as Concordia took a commanding 17-12 lead, eventually extending the gap to the 7-point final margin.
The Hawks would score the first point of the second set but that would be the last lead they would enjoy for the remainder of the night. Concordia would put together another early 6-1 run and then seal the deal with a 7-1 run mid-set, hitting a blistering .387 as a team enroute to the 13-point win. The Eagles' defense started to impose itself as well, holding the home team to a negative (-.030) hitting percentage in the set.
Freshman
Kylie Breitenwischer (Coppell, TX) made her collegiate debut in the 3rd set and, along with Red-Shirt Sophomore
Hailey Gaines (Mission Viejo, CA) (who was seeing her first significant action of the season), made sure they put their stamp on the match. The two combined for 6 kills and 3 blocks including a rocket by Breitenwischer that closed out a 15-3 scoring run to open the 3rd set. She then combined forces with fellow freshmen,
Cindy Tran (Irvine, CA), to put up a monster block to push another 4-point run. Gaines then helped close out the scoring, dialing up kills on two of the last four points of the match.
Senior
Rachel Flynn (Mission Viejo, CA) quietly led the way again with 10 kills, a service ace, 5 digs and 3 blocks but the true story was in the complete team effort. Ten different players contributed to a workman-like offensive effort (37 kills with only 6 errors for a .386%) while eight different players dialed up at least one block and eight picked up digs in the defensive effort.
Kyra Auten (Northridge, CA) led the way at the net with 4 rejections, while
Taylor Dennison and
Madeline Deters kept the ball off the floor in the back row with 12 and 8 digs respectively.
Concordia (13-1 Overall, 4-1 PacWest) travels back to Orange County Tuesday morning, just in time to turnaround for a Thursday night home tilt against Chaminade University (7pm) and another road match next Saturday at Azusa Pacific (6pm).
