Oct. 26, 2006
Box Score
BELLINGHAM, Wash. - Outside hitter Jaime Anderson (Jr., SeaTac/Mount Rainier) had a match-high 19 kills, seven of them in the second game, as Western Washington University claimed a 26-30, 32-30, 30-16, 30-25 victory over Northwest Nazarene in a Great Northwest Athletic Conference volleyball match Thursday on Haggen Court at Sam Carver Gymnasium.
The triumph was the ninth straight for Western, which improved to 16-5 overall and remained in second place in the GNAC at 12-1. The Vikings have won 14 of their last 15 matches.
Northwest Nazarene dropped to 12-11 overall and 7-6 in league action, losing for just the second time in its last six matches. Middle blocker Chelsea Lewis led the Crusaders with 15 kills, and middle blocker Lindsey Fryer added 14 kills and a team-high 20 digs.
The Vikings are undefeated in six home matches this season and have a 62-4 mark at Carver Gym since the 2000 campaign. Thursday's match was the first home match this season Western did not sweep.
"We seemed to play in spurts today, we played well as a team at times and poorly as a team at others," said Western coach Diane Flick. "When our team controls the ball on their side of the net, they can play a pretty dynamic style. But they lost control in game one and at the end of game four and made things a lot harder on themselves."
The Vikings jumped to a 4-1 lead in the opening game, but the Crusaders rallied, and eventually won the game by breaking away from a 26-26 tie with four straight points, including a kill and two service aces by Fryer.
Northwest Nazarene had an 11-6 lead in the second game, but it was Western's turn for a comeback, as the Vikings tied the match at 15-15 and won despite never leading by more than three points.
Western dominated the third game, then looked to be running away with game four, going up 21-9. The Vikings were still up by nine, 27-18, when the Crusaders ran off seven straight points to pull within two. Western finally closed out the match with three consecutive points, the last two on service aces by Shasta Bennett (Fr., Brush Prairie/Prairie).
Outside hitter Emily Castro (Jr., Bellingham/Meridian) had 14 kills for Western. Middle Blocker Tiana Roma (So., Edmonds/Edmonds-Woodway) added 11 kills and a match-high eight blocks, and libero Courtney Schneider (Jr., Snohomish) had a match-high 37 digs.
The Vikings visit Western Oregon on Saturday (7 p.m.) for a GNAC match before closing out the regular season with home contests against league-leading Seattle Pacific on Nov. 2 and Saint Martin's on Nov. 4.
