California Baptist University
Academy of Art
Artful Opener
9/20/2013 4:40:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
SAN FRANCISCO --- California Baptist University took care of business in its PacWest opener Thursday night, downing Academy of Art 3-1 (17-25, 25-16, 25-18, 25-21) on the road.
After dropping the opening game, the Lancers came back to win the next two sets handily and then survived a late push in the fourth to move to 1-0 in conference play.
“This was a great team win today and a great way to open conference play,” said CBU Head Coach Branden Higa. “We had a lot of hitting errors and our block wasn't dialed in early, but once we cleaned that up we really got on track. We made sure to keep the ball in, but also hit much more aggressively and let our block and defense control the match in the second game. That was the difference.”
The Lancers used a dominating 17-5 run to get back on track in the second set and rode that momentum through the third game to take a 2-1 lead.
CBU held a 20-16 lead in the fourth game, but Art U would score the next five points to take its first lead since going up 1-0 to open the game.
An Art U service error evened the set at 21-21 and then CBU's Lauren Marr and Jelena Dragovic combined on a block to give the Lancers' the advantage once again. Marr slammed home the next two points for CBU and Taylor Parker served an ace to close the match out.
CBU owned a 16-5 advantage on the block and hit .202 to just .125 for the Urban Knights in the match.
“This was our best blocking match of the season by far,” said Higa. “We gave the girls a game plan and they executed it very well.”
The Lancers were led by Kim McCalmont's 13 kills and 20 digs on the night and also got 11 kills from Dragovic and 10 more from Marr. Dragovic hit .409 and had four blocks, and Malika O'Brien posted a match-high eight blocks.
Art U got 15 kills from Melissa Brum and 14 from Emily Papale.
The win moves CBU to 4-5 overall on the season and drops the Knights to 4-5, 0-1 PacWest.
