MONMOUTH, Ore. – Outside hitters Katelynn Zanders and Brooke Pottle combined for 24 kills and 33 digs Saturday to help the Alaska Anchorage volleyball team to a 23-25, 25-16, 25-20, 25-20 victory over Western Oregon at the New P.E. Building.
UAA (17-8, 11-2 GNAC) also got a career night from sophomore right-side hitter Caitlin McInerney as it maintained a half-game lead over Western Washington in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference race. McInerney finished with 10 kills on .350 hitting and four assists – all career-highs.
WOU (8-14, 5-7) got eight kills on .438 hitting from Becky Blees, but the hosts could not keep their momentum after using a late 4-0 run to steal the first set.
The Seawolves dominated the second set to even the match and pulled away late in the third and fourth frames to secure the win, their first in Monmouth since 2009.
Leading just 20-19 in the third, the Seawolves ended it with a 5-1 run, getting consecutive spikes on the final two points from freshman middle blocker Erin Braun (5 kills, 4 block assists). Knotted 19-19 in the fourth, freshman setter Morgan Hooe started a 5-0 run when she ended a long rally with a perfectly placed kill in the deep corner. Zanders capped the surge with her 14th and final kill, and Braun finished things two points later with a smash down the middle.
Zanders added 16 digs for her fifth straight double-double, while Pottle earned her third double-double in a Seawolf uniform as the junior transfer tallied 10 kills and 17 digs, plus a pair of aces.
UAA won despite being narrowly out-hit, .149 to .144, however the Seawolves tallied 10 aces to the Wolves' three.
Hooe had a career-high three aces, plus 19 assists and 11 digs, while the other half of UAA's setting tandem – senior Siobhan Johansen – had 22 assists, seven digs and two aces.
UAA is home at the Wells Fargo Sports Complex for its next three matches, beginning with a Saturday, Nov. 9 (7 p.m.) showdown against in-state rival Alaska Fairbanks.
NOTES: UAA swept the season series from WOU for the first time since 2009 … Zanders now has 10 double-doubles on the year … the Seawolves tied a team season-high with 10 aces, equaling their total from Sept. 28 in a 3-1 road win over Northwest Nazarene … Johansen moved higher on three UAA career lists, rising to No. 16 in digs (918), No. 18 in aces (87) and No. 17 in matches played (105) … junior libero Quinn Barker had 16 digs to move up to No. 15 on UAA's single-season list, now with 405.
