Seawolves celebrate return home with another volleyball victory

Home sweet home turned into sweet 16 for the UAA volleyball team Thursday night.

Playing at home for the first time in nearly three weeks, the Seawolves won their 16th straight match by disposing of Western Oregon in three sets.

UAA used 10 aces and a perfect hitting performance by Erin Braun to sweep the Wolves 25-14, 25-21, 25-19 in front of a crowd of 1,166 at the Alaska Airlines Center.

The Seawolves, ranked ninth in the nation among Division II teams, improved to 17-1 overall and 7-0 in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference.

"Our servers did a good job of keeping them from running their offense," UAA coach Chris Green said. "We won the serve-pass battle, and that's always the first step."

Braun and Leah Swiss each served three aces and Taylor Noga and Kyla Militante-Amper each delivered two.

Braun, a senior middle blocker, added a sparkling effort at the net, where she put down 12 of her 17 attack attempts without making a single error. Braun's .706 percent attack percentage was the best by a UAA player this season and bettered Braun's career high of .700, set last year against Montana State Billings.

She matched her three aces with three block assists.

"The aces and blocks are kinda the easy points," Braun said. "The aces are definitely helpful in keeping teams out of their system."

Green said the Seawolves practice serving at the start of each practice as a way to warm up their shoulders.

"They serve hundreds of balls a week," he said.

UAA serves down the sideline a lot in practice and occasionally during matches. A ball served down the sideline can be difficult for the defense to get to, but it can also be challenging for the server, who runs the risk of serving out of bounds.

"There's definitely a lot of room for error," Braun said.

But that kind of aggressive serving can stymie an opponent, she noted: "Instead of having three options, they only have one option."

Tommy Gott, Western Oregon's first-year coach, said his team too often failed to get the pass or dig needed to run its system.

"We were not able to control our own game plan," he said. "We didn't control our first contacts, and Alaska took advantage."

Western Oregon, which has taken a number of highly regarded teams to five sets this season, tried to extend the match in the second set.

Down 19-10, the Wolves (5-9, 2-5) went on an 8-1 run to cut UAA's lead to 20-18, but UAA closed strong. Diana Fa'amausili provided a kill from the middle to ignite the Seawolves, whose final five points included an ace by Kyla Militante-Amper and three kills from Braun.

Western Oregon kept pace with UAA early in the third set, trailing just 11-10 before the Seawolves scored six straight points in a stretch that featured three of Fa'amausili's eight kills.

Six players racked up kills for UAA, including eight from Chrisalyn Johnson and seven from Leah Swiss.

All eight of the Seawolves who played furnished digs – Johnson had a match-high nine — and five had a hand in blocks. Morgan Hooe, a senior setter, provided 34 assists, five kills, five digs and a block assist.

"They're pretty physical in all aspects," Gott said. "They played with a lot of confidence."

The Seawolves, who hadn't played at home since Sept. 17, get another home-court match Saturday at 2 p.m. against Concordia.