BELLINGHAM -- Out-hit them. Out-blocked them. Out-passed them.
Almost every number favored the Seattle Pacific Falcons in Saturday morning's volleyball showdown against No. 7 West Texas A&M at the Western Washington Invitational.
But at the end of the match, the number that mattered most favored the Buffs.
Sarah Risser, Cortney Weedman and Lindsey Wodrich all had double-doubles, and the Falcons gave perennial NCAA Division II power West Texas all it could handle before falling barely short in a five-game marathon in Carver Gym.
Scores were 15-25, 25-23, 25-23, 20-25, 15-13.
“We outplayed them in every aspect of the game,” SPU coach Chris Johnson said after his team became the second from the Great Northwest Athletic Conference to take West Texas to five games before going down. (Central Washington did so on Friday.) “We played a good team really well. We know we can play at that level.
“We feel like we should have come away with a victory in the match, but we didn't.”
The Falcons did get a victory -- and a convincing one -- in their tournament finale, beating two-time defending Canadian collegiate champion British Columbia, 25-21, 25-22, 25-15.
Up next is the start of Great Northwest Athletic Conference play. Seattle Pacific visits Northwest Nazarene in Nampa, Idaho, for their opener on Thursday at 6 p.m., then head south on I-5 to Lacey for a match at Saint Martin's next Saturday night at 7.
SPU (6-6 overall) had its four-game winning streak snapped by West Texas A&M, which has won three NCAA titles and went 34-5 in reaching the regional semifinals last fall. The Lady Buffs climbed to 9-2.
Risser, a junior outside hitter (Santa Barbara, Calif.) had 19 kills and 16 digs against West Texas, her fourth consecutive double-double, and fifth in the last six matches. Wodrich, a sophomore outside hitter (Richland, Wash./Richland HS) added 11 kills and 13 digs. Weedman, a senior setter (Scottsdale, Ariz.) had 30 assists and came up with 16 digs.
Sophomore middle blocker Amber Johnson (Mount Vernon, Wash./Mount Vernon HS) hammered a career-high 15 kills and had seven blocks. Sophomore outside hitter Paige Hoffman (Encinitas, Calif.) added 13 kills, pushing her past the 200 mark as a Falcon.
Risser and Johnson were named to the all-tournament team.
SPU came back from an early 3-0 deficit in the deciding fifth game to take several one-point leads, the last at 13-12 on a kill by Risser. But the Lady Buffs (9-2), a three-time NCAA Division II champion, scored the last three points of the match.
"We just made a couple mistakes at the wrong time,” Johnson said, “and a good team like that is going to make you pay for it.”
The Falcons raced out of the gate, scoring the first three points of the match. After West Texas got within 11-10, SPU ran off eight straight points to take command at 19-10. Johnson had three kills during that stretch, and Risser had two.
The second game went back and forth before the Lady Buffs scored four of the final five points to turn a 22-21 deficit into a 25-23 victory. In Game 3, West Texas scored four straight points to snap a 20-20 tie, saw Seattle Pacific climb within 24-23, then closed it out.
SPU turned the tables in Game 4, scoring the last four points to force a fifth and deciding game.
The Falcons hit .205 for the match with 70 kills, and limited West Texas to .163 hitting with 62 kills. Seattle Pacific also had more total attacks (205-203), assists (63-61), service aces (4-3) and blocks (28-16).The defense kept Lady Buffs senior outside hitter Laura Prinsen in check. Prinsen got a team-leading 16 kills, but hit just .107.
“We did a good job of shutting down their hitters,” Johnson said. “We did a lot of what we wanted to do. The information we gave our players, they used it well. We had a good hitting percentage, we were minimizing our errors, and we stayed aggressive.”
SWEEP OF CANADIAN CHAMPS
Risser and Hoffman had nine kills apiece to help the Falcons prevail in three games against British Columbia, ending a 17-match winning streak for the Thunderbirds. UBC won its final 15 matches last season on the way to the Canadian college crown, then swept Central Washington and beat Western Oregon in four games at the WWU tourney this week.
The Falcons hit .324 with 44 kills and just eight errors on 111 total attacks. Amber Johnson and sophomore outside hitter Priscilla Collings (Chula Vista, Calif.) had seven kills apiece, Weedman had 22 assists, and freshman setter Shelby Swanson (Kennewick, Wash./Kamiakin HS) had 10 assists. Herold came up with 16 digs.
“We really did play well this morning (against West Texas), but we did everything right this afternoon,” Falcons coach Johnson said. “We stayed aggressive from the start and were just hammering the ball at them.”
