Falcons fans recently voted on the top individual highlights for SPU sports during 2011. The results are being presented this week. Today, we feature the No. 4 highlight.

  Highlight #5: Megan Lindsay hat trick powers rout of NNU
  Highlight #3: Anissa Madrid is national runner-up on beam
  Highlight #2: Andy Poling pumps in 35 for Falcons at NNU
  Highlight #1 


November 17, 2011

        Box score, play-by-play
        Herold named All-American for second time

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. – Down by two games, the Seattle Pacific Falcons came out for Game 3 of their NCAA West Regional volleyball match smiling, loose, and ready to get back into it.
 
Get back into it is precisely what they did before ultimately coming up two points short.
 
Lindsey Wodrich put down 24 kills, and Anna Herold set a single-match school record with 46 digs on Thursday night, but a furious Seattle Pacific wasn't enough as Brigham Young-Hawaii pulled out a first-round victory on Thursday night.
 
Scores in Coussoulis Arena on the Cal State San Bernardino campus were 25-21, 25-21, 15-25, 30-28.
 
The 25^th-ranked Falcons, who won the Great Northwest Athletic Conference championship outright last week, finished their season at 21-7. The unranked Seasiders (19-3) won their 16^th straight match and moved into Friday's semifinals.
 
“We definitely fought back hard and improved throughout the match both defensively and offensively, which is what we had talked about,” coach Chris Johnson said. “We had our shots to take that game and didn't quite do it.”

Senior libero Herold (Bothell, Wash./Shorecrest HS), also playing her final match, broke the old single-match digs record of 45 set by Torii Mount in 2007. Herold wound up with 2,316 digs for her career -- also a school record. Herold also owns school marks for average digs per game (6.20, set this season) and single-season digs (614, set initially as a sophomore in 2009 and tied as a senior this fall).

Senior outside hitter Wodrich (Richland, Wash./Richland HS) also had 15 digs for her 16^th double-double of the season and the 35^th and final one of her Falcons career. Those 15 digs pushed her final total to 905.
 
Junior setter Shelby Swanson (Kennewick, Wash./Kamiakin HS) racked up 49 assists. That moved her career total to 2,644 and pushed her up to No. 11 on the all-time Great Northwest Athletic Conference career assists list.
 




After dropping the first two games, the Falcons raced to a 13-2 lead in Game 3 and never let BYU-Hawaii get closer than seven points. That put SPU right back into the match.
 
“Anna told us to fight like pit bulls because they're scrappy and they come back,” Wodrich said of the Falcons' conversation between the second and third games. “That kind of pumped us up – be like pit bulls and go hard And it worked because it was 0-0 and a fresh start and we went after them.”
 
Added Johnson, “We knew we could play with them. It wasn't like we were being overwhelmed. We hadn't played our best volleyball yet (in the first two games), and we knew that, too.”
 
BYU-Hawaii (19-3) threatened to make a runaway of it in Game 4, building an 8-2 lead. But SPU rallied, went in front, at one time by as many as three points at 18-15.
 
“We knew it was early yet (when down 8-2), and we still believed we could win,” Johnson said.
 




Four times, the Falcons were on the brink of forcing the fifth and deciding game, leading 24-22, 24-23, 25-24, and 28-27. But all four times, the Seasiders fought it off.
 
Seattle Pacific also fended off BYU-Hawaii's first two tries at match point, getting a kill from senior outside hitter Paige Hoffman (Encinitas, Calif.) to tie it at 26-26, and getting a combined block from sophomore Nikki Lowell (Claremont, Calif.) and junior Cailin Fellows (Edmonds, Wash./Edmonds-Woodway HS) to climb back to 27-27.
 
But with the score tied at 28-28, Erh Fang Hsu put down a kill for the Seasiders, then Courtney Skaggs sealed it with a service ace.
 
“We left it all on the court,” Wodrich said. “We're upset with the outcome bue we came back in Games 3 and 4 and really fought for it.”
 
The Falcons hammered the ball  at the Seasiders all night, swinging 197 times and finishing with 59 kills and a .168 hitting percentage. BYU-Hawaii dug up 95 of those swings, blocked seven others.
 
“Any time you're playing a Hawaii team, you know they're a great defensive team, and BYU-Hawaii was definitely that,” Herold said. “It's hard to have hitters like ours and be swinging as hard as we can, and the ball's not going down. But we did a great job of not getting frustrated and talking to our teammates and telling them where to hit.
 
“It just didn't go our way.”

                                                                           
NCAA WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL
Division II West Regionals – First Round
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Coussoulis Arena / San Bernardino, Calif.
 
Brigham Young-Hawaii 3, Seattle Pacific 1
 
Game scores – 25-21, 25-21, 15-25, 30-28.
 
Service aces – SPU 5 (Brianna Leenders 3), BYUH 4 (Ying Chun Chen 2).
Kills – SPU 59 (Lindsey Wodrich 24, Cailin Fellows 13, Nikki Lowell 10), BYUH 60 (Shih Ting Chen 21).
Assists – SPU 55 (Shelby Swanson 49), BYUH 56 (Ying Chun Chen 50).
Digs – SPU 92 (Anna Herold 56, Wodrich 15, Paige Hoffman 11), BYUH 95 (S. Chen 25, Losaline Pula 25).
Blocks (total / solo) – SPU 13 / 1 solo (Lowell 3 / 1 solo), BYUH 13 / 1 solo (Hsu 2 / 1 solo).
Hitting (kills-errors-attacks) – SPU 59-26-197—168 (Lowell 10-4-21—286, Wodrich 24-9-70—214), BYUH 60-24-183--.197 (Hsu 11-0-23--.478, Lauren Hagemeyer 20-9-41--.268).
Attendance – 283.
 
Records – Seattle Pacific 21-7. Brigham Young Hawaii 19-3.
 
Next match – Season complete.