Box Score
BELMONT, Calif. – Sophomore outside hitter Sam Harthun (Oregon City, Ore./Art) posted a season-high in kills for the second straight day and the Alaska Nanooks women's volleyball team earned its first victory of the season Saturday with a 3-0 sweep of Notre Dame de Namur in the final match of the Route 92 Showdown at Walter Gleason Gym.
Harthun had 19 kills and 10 digs for her first double-double of the season. She hit .421 in the match, helping the Nanooks (1-10) hit a season-best .352 as a team with just seven errors. The .352 team hitting percentage was the Nanooks' third-highest in the last five seasons.
Senior outside hitter Keri Knight (Arvada, Colo./Business Administration) added 10 kills and five digs. Freshman setter Katelyn Camp (Newton, Iowa/General Studies) had a solid all-around performance with 30 assists, six digs, five kills and three total blocks.
Kawai Robins-Hardy led the Argonauts (2-6) with 17 kills. NDNU had 25 attack errors and three service errors in the match, and hit .217 as a team.
Alaska earned a hard-fought victory in the first set. The opening frame saw 15 tie scores and seven lead changes. Neither team held a lead larger than three points, and they served for set point three different times before the Nanooks finally clinched it at 27-25.
Alaska held a 21-18 advantage in that first set, but a 6-2 run put the Argonauts on the verge of taking a 1-0 match advantage. The Nanooks fought off defeat twice in a row, first with a kill from Camp, and again with a kill from Harthun. Harthun's kill made it 25-all, and it would be the first of three in a row for her, as she notched three straight points for the Nanooks to seal the first set win.
The Nanooks posted their best comeback of the season in the second set to take a 2-0 match advantage. NDNU broke an early 2-2 tie with a 9-2 run, and would lead by as many as seven at 16-9. But back came Alaska with a 12-3 run of its own, going from seven down to two up at 21-19. The Nanooks got help from six Argonauts errors during the run, as well as kills from Sam Harthun, Cassidy Brewer and Keri Knight.
The roles were reversed in the third set, with the Nanooks distancing themselves midway through before having to fight off a comeback by the opponent. The set was close in the early goings, just like the second, with the score tied 4-4 before Alaska ran out to a six-point advantage at 16-10 – nearly identical to NDNU's 16-9 lead in the second set before the Nanooks made a charge.
The Argonauts' 8-2 run made it 18-all, and the teams would stay within two points of each other for the rest of the way until the Nanooks bookended the set with back-to-back errors by NDNU to win the set 25-22 and complete the sweep.
Alaska begins their Great Northwest Athletic Conference season next week at home with 7 p.m. matches Thursday and Saturday. Montana State Billings visits the Patty Center Thursday night, and Seattle Pacific comes in Saturday night.
