The streaking UAA volleyball team on Saturday knocked off another nationally ranked opponent, this time taking down 10th-ranked Northwest Nazarene in a five-set match at the Alaska Airlines Center.
Playing in front of a crowd of 1,268, the Seawolves used 25 kills from Leah Swiss to rally past the Nighthawks 19-25, 25-14, 12-25, 25-23, 15-9.
The win, which came two nights after UAA upset 25th-ranked Central Washington behind Chrisalyn Johnson's 24 kills, was the team's sixth in a row.
"That was a huge win against a very, very good team — one that came in with only one loss — so we're happy to avenge a loss that we had earlier in the year," UAA coach Chris Green said at a post-match press conference.
A month ago, the Nighthawks beat UAA in four sets in Nampa, Idaho. They took Saturday's first set but UAA responded with stellar play in the second set.
"In set 2, that was really some of the best Seawolf volleyball that we've seen this year, and we kind of got back to that at the end of games 4 and 5," Green said.
The final set featured five ties and three lead changes before UAA gained control with a 6-0 run, fueled by three Swiss kills and two Keala Kaio-Perez aces, that made it 10-5.
"That was a really fun, competitive match the whole way," Swiss said at the post-match press conference. "We have a great rivalry against NNU so it certainly wasn't hard to get motivated for this one."
Northwest Nazarene, which came to Alaska tied for the lead in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, slipped into second place (20-2 overall, 12-2 GNAC). UAA (16-7, 11-3) is tied with Central Washington for third place.
Swiss, a junior outside hitter from Anchorage, posted a .301 attack percentage, making three errors on career-high 73 attacks. She added 11 digs, three block assists and one solo block.
Johnson, another junior outside hitter from Anchorage, supplied UAA's match point with her 16th kill of the match. She put up a double-double with 18 digs and added two aces.
UAA served 10 aces to Northwest Nazarene's five, with Kaio-Perez getting give aces to go with a match-high 26 digs. Casey Davenport chipped in 15 digs while handing out 47 assists, and Vanessa Hayes was good for six block assists, six kills and two aces.
For the Nighthawks, Kendra Bodine led a group of four players into double-figure kills with 17 while adding 24 digs and two solo blocks. Madi Farrell added 15 kills on .412 hitting and Hailey Cook furnished 55 assists and 11 digs.
Next up for the Seawolves are their final two road matches of the regular season. They face league-leading Western Washington (13-1) on Thursday in Bellingham, Washington, and Simon Fraser on Saturday in Burnaby, British Columbia.