Seawolves volleyball sweeps the Wolves

After playing 12 of their previous 13 matches on the road, UAA returned to the friendly confines of the Wells Fargo Sports Complex and posted an impressive 25-20, 25-21, 25-20 sweep of Western Oregon, the defending Great Northwest Athletic Conference champions.

Matthisen, who played for the Wolves two years ago before transferring to UAA, led the Seawolves attack with 20 kills.

"It feels amazing. I'm so happy we won," said Matthisen. "I think we played awesome."

The Seawolves didn't overwhelm the Wolves, but methodically pulled away with a varied offensive attack, steady defense and a few strong service runs.

"It just never felt like we got things going our way. We were never able to gain any momentum," Western Oregon coach Brad Saindon said. "UAA had a lot to do with that, no doubt about it. They had a couple servers we really had trouble with and they were just very good tonight."

Coming off consecutive losses, the Seawolves put together a solid all-around effort. Cortney Lundberg and McKenzie Moss each hammered eight kills, Calli Scott finished with 35 assists and Stacie Meisner had 10 digs.

"All of our hitters were amazing. We have a lot of options," Matthisen said. "The block on the other side didn't know what we were going to do."

The Seawolves hit at a solid .299 percentage, compared to .190 for the Wolves.

"I think our hitters were pretty consistent," UAA coach Chris Green said. "We did some very nice things. We passed the ball well and played at a consistently high level throughout the match. That's something we haven't seen before, even against Western Washington.

"I don't think we played our best match, but everybody did a very good job."

UAA improved to 11-7 overall and 3-2 in the GNAC, moving into a third-place tie in the conference. Western Oregon fell to 5-11, 2-3.

The Seawolves started out sharp, building a 6-1 lead early in the opening set on the strength of a five-point service run by Meisner. After Western Oregon began to sneak back into the match, Moss rattled off a six-point service run that put the Seawolves back in control. Lundberg had a huge block and two kills during the run.

The Wolves jumped ahead 14-8 in the second set, but another big service run by Meisner put the Seawolves in the lead. Meisner served for six points, punctuated by an ace, and Matthisen had three kills during the decisive run as UAA took a lead that it never relinquished.

"We just stayed calm. We really concentrated on staying calm, even when we were down," Matthisen said.

"Staci Meisner came in and had a nice run of serves for us," Green said. "That comeback in the second set was very important."

The Seawolves jumped out to a 6-0 lead in the third set behind the serving of Moss and a couple of double blocks by Lundberg and Scott. UAA never let the Wolves sniff a comeback as it went up 19-11 before closing out the match.

The Seawolves served six aces and made two receiving errors. Meisner is the only back row player returning for UAA. Matthisen, Moss and freshman Nikkie Viotto are first-year Seawolves on the serve receive.

"We lost all our serve receive, except for Staci," Green said. "Those three new passers back there have been stepping in and doing a good job."

Senior Danielle English made her final trip to Anchorage with the Wolves. The former South player finished with eight digs.

"She was pretty excited to come back. I'm disappointed we didn't have a better result for her," Saindon said.

Find Richard Larson online at adn.com/contact/rlarson or call 257-4335.