EPIC SWEEP

Saturday, November 6

Fresno, CA

3:00 PM

California Baptist University

Fresno Pacific

11/7/2010 5:39:00 AM | Women's Volleyball

FRESNO, Calif. --- Just two weeks after the No. 3 Fresno Pacific had its nearly two-year long win streak broken, No. 5 California Baptist University did something that hadn't been done in eight years. Beat Fresno Pacific on its own floor.

The Lancers didn't settle for just any old victory either. They swept the three-time defending national champs in a little more than 60 minutes.

The 3-0 (26-24, 25-16, 25-17) victory was the first time Fresno Pacific had lost on its home floor since Nov. 23, 2002, a streak of 122 home matches. It was also CBU's first victory against the Sunbirds since 2007, snapping an eight-match losing streak.

“We have had some great matches against them in the past, but this one was special because we were able to beat them in their gym,” said Head Coach Ryan McGuyre. “It's always a tough place to come and play, but tonight was the quietest I'd ever heard that gym. Coming out and winning game one was key to give us confidence and take their crowd out of it somewhat.”

CBU silenced the raucous home crowd with a nail-biter opening set win.

The Lancers jumped out to a hot start, taking a 10-5 lead. CBU would hold the five-point advantage, running the score to 20-15. Sensing defeat Fresno Pacific made a push running off four straight points. A well placed timeout by CBU and a kill by Jessica Kalama ended the run.

The Sunbirds would continued to battle and after another Lancer timeout tied the score at 23-23 on a Keke Wang kill. Ingrid Carmona responded by ripping a kill of her own to give the Lancers set point. Another Wang kill kept the home team alive.

Then it was Linjun Ji's turn. The sophomore outside hitter dropped two straight kills on the Sunbirds to take game one.

CBU would roll from there on out, winning games two and three by nine and eight points, respectively.

The Lancers hit a match high .438 in the opening set, while Fresno Pacific hit .325. It was the only set in which the Sunbirds would hit better than .150 as the CBU defense would take over.

“It was an all around solid performance for us both offensively and defensively,” said McGuyre. “We got great contributions across the board tonight. Ingrid was on fire, Nevena Dragovic had one of the best setting performances I have seen and Ji had probably her best match of the year.”

Carmona dropped 20 kills, hitting a scorching .421 on the attack. Ji had the second most kills with 11 on 20 attempts and one error (.500). Dragovic dished out assists at a rate of 14.3 per set, recording 43 in the sweep.

As a team, Fresno Pacific hit just .178, while the Lancers hit .366.

“I have to give a lot of credit to our second unit as well,” said McGuyre. “They mimicked the play of Fresno in practice all week and really got our starters prepared for what they wanted to do. The intensity in practice was very high all week long.”

The Lancers run their record to 28-4 overall, 15-3 GSAC, while the Sunbirds fall to 26-2, 17-1. The win keeps CBU tied with Biola for second in the conference standings with the Lancers holding the tie-breaker because of a better record against the still first place Sunbirds (CBU is 1-1 against Fresno Pacific while Biola is 0-2).

The Lancers come home Tuesday to face Concordia for the final home game of the year, then close out the regular season on the road against Hope International.