Volleyball Weekly Notebook

10/19/2011 1:35:00 PM

PACIFIC AT PUGET SOUND

Match No. 20/Away Match No. 8
Fri., Oct. 21, 7 p.m., Memorial Fieldhouse, Tacoma, Wash.
Live Stats: www2.pugetsound.edu/athletics/live/volleyball/xlive.htm

LEWIS & CLARK AT PACIFIC
Match No. 21/Home Match No. 6
Sat., Oct. 22, 7 p.m., Stoller Center, Forest Grove
Live Stats: www.goboxers.com/livestats

BOXERS LOOK FOR WEEKEND SWEEP TO KEEP PACE
With a split against the eastern Washington schools at home over the weekend, the Pacific volleyball team will look to keep pace with the top half of the Northwest Conference against a pair of tough opponents. The Boxers travel north to Tacoma to face Puget Sound on Friday before coming home to host Lewis & Clark on Saturday.

BOXER BYTES
• Pacific has rebounded from a two-set deficit to force the deciding frame and beat Whitman in five sets. The Boxers hit .149 for the match, but had to force extra points to break two match points for the Missionaries in the fifth set.

• Kelsy Takashima finished with a season high 24 kills in the victory over the Missionaries and finished with an impressive .488 hitting percentage. Alexa Block finished her 10th double-double of the season with 21 kills and 15 digs.

• On Saturday, Pacific could not recover from the loss of Alexa Block to injury in the first set as the Boxers fell to Whitworth in four sets. Block had six kills before leaving with the injury. Kelsy Takashima again led the Boxers with 10 kills.

• Kelsy Takashima was selected as the Northwest Conference's Volleyball Student-Athlete of the Week. Takashima finished with 34 kills and a .391 hitting percentage to go along with five service aces, seven digs and seven blocks in the Boxers' two weekend matches. She is the first Pacific volleyball honoree this season.

SCOUTING THE OPPONENTS
PUGET SOUND
The No. 21 ranked Loggers enter the week tied for second in the NWC at 7-3 and are 15-3 overall. Puget Sound has won four of their last five matches and split a pair of weekend contests. On Friday, the Loggers were stunned in a three-set sweep by Lewis & Clark in Portland. The Pioneers limited the Loggers to a .130 hitting percentage, winning the first set handily before coming out on top of close second and third sets. Brynn Blickenstaff led Puget Sound with nine kills. The Loggers rebounded to win a four-set match at Linfield on Saturday. Neither team hit well, with the Loggers coming up with a .146 percentage for the match. But the Loggers hit .486 in the decisive fourth set. Stephanie O'Connor led the Loggers with 13 kills while Jamie Ecklund added 12 kills. Jackie Harvey leads the Puget Sound offense with 204 kills and 3.52 kills per set, ranking second in the NWC. Mark Massey is in his 16th season at Puget Sound head coach.

ALL TIME SERIES: Puget Sound leads 30-5 AGAINST CHAN: Puget Sound leads 6-1
LAST MEETING: Pacific won in four sets (25-19, 16-25, 25-16, 25-22) in Forest Grove on Sept. 23, 2011

LEWIS & CLARK
The Pioneers enter the week tied with Pacific for fourth place in the NWC at 6-4 and are 10-10 overall. L&C has won four straight matches after beating both ranked Tacoma schools over the weekend. The Pioneers stunned Puget Sound in three sets on Friday. L&C hit .248 for the match and limited the Loggers to a .130 percentage. Margaret Dowling and Kataleya Milan led the Pioneers with 11 kills apiece and five players finished with double-digit kills. On Saturday, L&C went five sets to get past a talented Pacific Lutheran squad. The Pioneers rebounded from two sets down to foce the deciding fifth frame before coming through with th 15-10 win in the fifth. Dowling led the Pioneers with 14 kills as four players finished with double-digit kills. Dowling leads the L&C offense with 168 kills and an average of 2.55 kills per set. As a team, the Pioneers are hitting .121 and are averaging 10.56 kills per set. Lori Jepsen is in her ninth year as Lewis & Clark head coach.

ALL TIME SERIES: Lewis & Clark leads 31-24 AGAINST CHAN: Lewis & Clark leads 6-1
LAST MEETING: Lewis & Clark won 3-1 (25-22, 25-22, 21-25, 25-17) in Portland on Sept. 24, 2011.

PACIFIC NEWS & NOTES
THE NWC VOLLEYBALL STUDENT-ATHLETE OF THE WEEK: Middle blocker Kelsy Takashima (Sr., Kaunakakai, Hawaii) finally earned some well-deserved recognition from the conference with selection as the Northwest Conference's Volleyball Student-Athlete of the Week. Takashima finished the weekend's two matches with a total of 34 kills, a .391 hitting percentage and an average of 3.78 kills per set. In addition, she contributed five service aces, seven digs and seven blocks. Takashima led the Boxers with a Pacific season-high 24 kills and an impressive .488 hitting percentage in the Boxers' five-set win over Whitman on Friday. She added two service aces, three digs and two service aces. On Saturday, Takashima led the Boxers with 10 kills, three aces, four digs and five blocks in the Boxers four-set loss to Whitworth. The award was the first for a Pacific volleyball player this season and the fifth selection for the Boxers in all sports this fall.

Takashima, who converted back to middle blocker this season after playing her junior year at outside hitter, had been the Boxers' most consistent and most powerful player all year. She enters the week ranked second in the NWC with a .324 hitting percentage and is ranked third with an average of 2.97 kills per set. In addition, Takashima leads the NWC in service aces with an average of 0.48 per set.

OVER AND OUT: Pacific lost one of it's floor leaders on Saturday when Alexa Block (Jr., Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.) suffered an injury against Whitworth. Block suffered a shoulder injury in the first set against the Pirates that could be season-ending for the outside hitter. Block had been on a roll before the injury, compiling six kills in the first set. The night before, Block had finished with 21 kills and 15 digs in the five-set win over Whitman, the 10th double-double for her this season. Block enters the week ranked fourth in the NWC in kills, averaging 3.37 kills per set.

GETTING DEFENSIVE: Potentially lost in the flurry of offensive success for the Boxers has been a great defensive presence all season for Jade Thompson (Jr., Marysville, Wash.) Thompson played a big role in Pacific's five-set victory over Whitman on Friday, coming up with 37 digs, seven assists and two aces. On Saturday against Whitworth, Thompson finished with a team-high 17 digs to go along with a kill and a service ace. A Honorable Mention All-NWC selection in 2010, Thompson has numbers to justify a look for a first team or second team selection. She enters the week ranked fourth in the NWC with an average of 5.33 digs per set, which also ranks her 46th nationally among NCAA Division III players. She also has 49 assists and 19 service aces.

IN THE NCAA STATS: Pacific enters the week ranked in three categories in the latest NCAA Division III statistics. The Boxers are ranked 35th in assists, averaging 11.57 per set. The Boxers are also ranked 44th in digs with an average of 18.24 per set and 48th in kills with an average of 12.38 per set. The NCAA Division III statistics are updated every Tuesday and can be found online at http://www.ncaa.com/stats/volleyball-women/d3.

AN EXCEPTIONAL START: Pacific's 12-7 start to the season is one of the best in the program's recent history. The Boxers enter the week having matched the 2007 season for the best start to the season. That year, Chris Stanley's final year as head coach, the Boxers finished with a 14-9 record and a fourth place NWC finish at 9-7. To date, the Boxers have improved their record by seven wins over the final win total of five in 2010. In addition, the 12 wins gives Pacific only their second double-digit win season since 1997. The run of victories is especially impressive considering that Pacific has played just five home matches in the total of 19 they have played this season.

CUTTING DOWN THE LOGGERS: The Sept. 23 victory over then-No. 16 Puget Sound was a big win for Pacific volleyball in more ways than one. First, the Boxers manage to snap the Loggers' 11-match win streak that opened the 2011 season. Second, the victory was Pacific's first over Puget Sound under current head coach Lena Chan and the first for the Boxers since the end of 2007 season, a year in which the Boxers finished 14-9 overall. It also marks only the fourth time that Pacific has beat Puget Sound over the last 10 seasons. Third, the win marked the third time that a Chan-coached team has beaten an AVCA Division III Top-25 opponent. The Boxers last toppled a ranked foe in 2009 when they knocked off then No. 5 ranked La Verne in five sets.

PACIFIC PICKED NINTH IN NWC PRESEASON POLL: Northwest Conference coaches have picked Pacific to finish ninth this season in the annual preseason poll conducted in August. The Boxers received 13 of a possible 72 points in the poll. Coaches were not allowed to vote for their own teams. The Boxers finished ninth in the NWC in 2010 with a 5-19 record. Whitworth is picked to defend their conference title, receiving 69 points and seven of the nine first place votes. Puget Sound is picked second with 58 points, receiving the other two first place votes.

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