California Baptist University
Grand Canyon
What A Night!
10/6/2012 5:29:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
The only difference this year was the team that would come out on top, as CBU handed the No. 13-ranked Antelopes a 3-2 (18-25, 25-20, 22-25, 25-21, 16-14) loss Friday night, avenging two five-set defeats from last season.
"We knew this was going to be a battle coming into it," said CBU Head Coach Branden Higa, who has his team off to a 5-0 start in PacWest play. "We've been waiting a long time to get a team of that caliber in our gym to test ourselves and see where we are at. The story of this match was just that we had to believe that we could beat them and we did, especially going into the fourth and fifth games."
The fourth set saw GCU jump ahead 9-3, but CBU quickly clawed back, closing the gap to 11-10.
Late in the set, with her team trailing17-20, Kim McCalmont rattled off three straight kills, pulling the Lancers even. McCalmont went back to work two points later with a kill directly over the Lopes block. She then turned it over to Kattie Givens who dropped two points in from the middle to take the set.
The fifth was even more of a heart-stopper.
The two teams played neck-and-neck the entire way, but out of a CBU timeout, the Lopes went ahead 12-10. Out of another CBU timeout Faith Steinwedell went up on her own to block a GCU attack and then a subsequent error by the visitors evened the set at 12-12. Steinwedell then gave the Lancers the lead with a rip off the outside of the Lopes' block.
Kristen Preach and GCU were not done however and after preach dumped a kill in and followed by assisting on another, the Lopes held match point at 14-13.
The next two attacks by GCU couldn't find the floor and just like that it was match point for CBU. On cue Steinwedell stepped up and served a ball down the left side of the court that the Lopes couldn't return, giving the Lancers the 16-14 win.
"The girls made some unbelievable plays on long rallies and came up huge when it really mattered," said Higa. "After losing that first set we did a few things different like mixing up the set distribution, but what it really came down to was execution. We needed to pass better, we needed to be more aggressive attacking and we needed to do a better job taking advantage of those times when we got them out of system. It really took until that fourth set for us to get those things going."
The Lancers totaled 103 digs in the match with five players tallying at least 17 digs on the night.
Ingrid Carmona led the way on the stat sheet, putting up a 20 kill, 20 dig match. McCalmont was second on the team with 13 kills, several of which came in big spots for the Lancers. Taylor Parker put up 47 assists.
Hayleigh Friemoth led GCU with 23 kills and was the only player in double digits for the Lopes. Preach had 48 assists and nine kills. GCU's Mackenzie Phelps led all players with 30 kills.
The loss drops the Lopes to 14-3 overall, 4-3 PacWest. The Lancers run their overall record to 12-2.
CBU goes right back to work Saturday night, hosting Dixie State at 5 p.m.
