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Press Conference
FAIRBANKS, Alaska — Senior outside hitter
Keri Knight (Arvada, Colo./Business Administration) finished the final home match of her Alaska career Saturday by extending her streak of matches with at least seven kills to 18, but the Nanooks fell on Senior Night to No. 10 Western Washington 3-0 (10-25, 19-25. 19-25) at the Patty Center.
Knight tallied eight kills for Alaska (4-23, 3-13 Great Northwest Athletic Conference) to push her season total to 235 -- already a single-season career best. Knight also added three digs. Knight has had at least seven kills in every match dating back to Sept. 14. She has raised her season hitting percentage 129 points to .195 during the streak.
Sophomore outside hitter
Sam Harthun (Oregon City, Ore./Art) notched 19 kills to lead all players. That pushed her season total to 410, putting her fifth all-time on the Alaska single season kills list. Head coach
Mallory Larranaga is the next player ahead of her on the list, logging 425 kills in 2003.
Freshman setter
Katelyn Camp (Newton, Iowa/General Studies) posted her 13th 30-assists match of the season Saturday with 31 helpers, pushing her past the 800-assists mark for the season. She now has 821 assists, leaving her just 11 away from No. 10 on the Alaska career assists list. Becky Martin had 832 assists during her one-year stint with the Nanooks in 2011.
The No. 10 Vikings (21-3, 14-2 GNAC) played a nearly flawless match with only three attack errors and one service error across the match's three sets. They did not commit any errors in the third and deciding set, but still had to hold off the charging Nanooks, who were within three points at 21-18. Alaska hit .138 with 23 attack errors in the match.
Western Washington hit .467 as a team and also had nine total team blocks on defense. Jennica McPherson led the Vikings with 13 kills and no errors in 23 attempts for a .565 hitting percentage. Kelsey Moore had 11 kills with one error, hitting .333.
The Vikings went on a 20-4 run in the first set after trailing Alaska 6-5 to win 25-10 and take a 1-0 match advantage. The Nanooks would not make it easy on the Vikings in the final two sets. WWU took a nine-point lead at 18-9 in the second set and appeared primed for another big win, but Alaska ran off a 9-5 stretch that made it 23-18 before the Vikings finished off the set win at 25-19.
The Nanooks stayed right on the Vikings in the third set. Western Washington jumped out to a 6-2 lead, but Alaska came back with three straight points and never trailed by more than three during the next 24 points. The Nanooks forced four ties during that stretch and even briefly took a 15-14 lead on a kill from Camp.
The Vikings responded after falling behind, going on a 7-1 run to take a 21-16 lead. Alaska still would not go away, getting back-to-back kills from Harthun to make it a three-point set at 21-18. But a final 4-1 run powered by three kills from McPherson finished off the sweep for Western Washington.
Alaska heads out on the road next week for its final two matches of the 2013 season. The Nanooks take on Seattle Pacific at 6 p.m. AKST Thursday, then face Montana State Billings at 5 p.m. AKST Saturday in the season finale.
