Nov. 3, 2006

Linfield Ties Pacific Lutheran Atop NWC Standings

Match Statistics

Linfield moved into a tie for the Northwest Conference volleyball lead by defeating front-runner Pacific Lutheran, 30-26, 25-30, 30-25, 30-17, on Friday night in Olson Auditorium.

The visiting Wildcats are now knotted for the conference lead with the Lutes, both teams with 13-2 records in the NWC. With the four-game win, however, Linfield holds the tiebreaker over Pacific Lutheran when it comes to determining the conference's automatic berth in the NCAA Division III national playoffs which start next week. Linfield has the advantage based on games won in head-to-head competition in conference matches: PLU defeated the Wildcats in five games in McMinnville, Ore., but Linfield came back to win in four games tonight.

Both teams still have one match yet to play during the regular season. Pacific Lutheran hosts George Fox on Saturday night, while Lewis & Clark will play Linfield in McMinnville. Should Linfield and PLU remain tied, they would be declared conference co-champions, Linfield would get the automatic bid and the Lutes would have to depend on an at-large bid as determined by the national tournament selection committee.

Linfield rallied from a 25-23 deficit to win the opening game. With the score tied at 26-26, Katelyn Baker and Kelsey French sandwiched kills around a couple of PLU errors to finish the game.

The Lutes stormed out to a 9-3 lead in the second game before Linfield rallied to within one point on two occasions, the last at 22-21. Stacie Matz finished the game for PLU with a kill, setting up the crucial third game.

Linfield started to exert its dominance at the net in that game and finished the night with 10 team blocks. At the same time, Katelyn Baker almost single-handedly carried the Wildcats' offense in the third game with 10 kills in 13 attack attempts. The Lutes saw their 16-12 lead whittled to 18-17 when Baker converted on four straight kills to give the Wildcats a 21-18 advantage. The Lutes never got closer than two points the remainder of the game.

Carrying a 2-1 lead into the fourth game, the Wildcats used the momentum to finish off the Lutes. Linfield recorded five of their 11 service aces in that fourth game as the Lutes struggled with the Wildcats' serving.

Baker and Lauren Kreiger both finished the match with 14 kills for Linfield, while French added 10. Kreiger was a dominant force at the net with seven block assists. Chelsey Gellatly contributed 41 assists as the Wildcats hit .199 as a team.

Pacific Lutheran got 17 kills from Matz and 15 more from Kelcy Joynt, but the Lutes hit just .128 against the tough Linfield defense. Megan Kosel led all players with 28 digs and Di Maggio had 48 assists for the Lutes.

- PLU -