The Seawolves knocked off the fourth-ranked volleyball team in the nation Thursday in Bellingham, Washington, and they did it with their All-America candidate sidelined with an injury.
UAA edged Western Washington in a dramatic five-set showdown between the top two teams in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference. The Seawolves lost the first two sets and came from behind in each of the final three sets, rallying from a 13-9 deficit in the third set, a 15-11 deficit in the fourth set and a 9-7 deficit in the fifth set.
They triumphed 23-25, 22-25, 25-23, 27-25, 16-14 to snap Western Washington’s 39-match home-court winning streak.
The match was the first of two big matches on the road this week for the Seawolves -- on Saturday, they’ll be in Canada for a match against third-place Simon Fraser. They play their final two regular-season match next week in Anchorage.
With GNAC kill leader Eve Stephens out for the second straight match, others came through for UAA.
Kayla McGlathery registered all five of her blocks in the fifth set to carry the Seawolves at the end, Vanessa Hayes continued a hot hitting streak with 17 kills and Jalisa Ingram – playing in place of Stephens -- slammed a career-high eight kills to go with five blocks.
“I can’t express how proud I am of this group tonight,” UAA coach Chris Green said in a press release from the school. “Absolutely everyone stepped up tonight and played with a ton of confidence. Vanessa was hitting for a poor percentage at one point but she stuck with it and came through with some huge kills at the end, and Kayla’s block was absolutely huge in the fifth.”
Hayes, a junior outside hitter, has been on fire lately. In her last three matches, she has racked up 54 kills, including a career-high in a Saturday victory over Concordia.
The win gives UAA a season sweep of the Vikings, whose only two losses this season are to the Seawolves. UAA improved to 19-6 overall and 14-3 in conference play, and Western Washington slipped to 23-2, 15-2.
The Vikings were led by freshman Calley Heilborn’s 17 kills and 16 digs. They led every statistical category – outhitting the Seawolves .250 to .191, outblocking them 16 to 12.5 and outdigging them 71-68. But the Seawolves served 10 aces and benefited from 17 serving errors by the Vikings.
Anjoilyn Vreeland served four aces and had 11 digs to help UAA. McGlathery provided 13 kills on .423 percent hitting, and Hannah Pembroke and Vera Pluharova supplied eight kills apiece. Pluharova and Ellen Floyd each had four blocks, with Floyd adding 43 assists and a team-high 14 digs. Talia Leauanae added 12 digs and Maggie Schlueter had a career-high 11.