Box Score FAIRBANKS – The Alaska Nanook volleyball team was beaten, 0-3, in its Great Northwest Athletic Conference home opener, to Seattle Pacific University on Saturday night at the Patty Center Gymnasium.
Alaska (0-11, 0-3 GNAC) has a quick turnaround as it hosts Montana State University-Billings on Monday, September 22 at 7:00 p.m. Seattle Pacific (9-2, 3-0 GNAC) now travels to Anchorage to also play on Monday night.
Sam Harthun and
Brooke Mattice each had 10 kills while
Maddie Davis had a hitting percentage of .316 (nine kills) to lead the Nanook attack.
Tessa Butterfield led the team with seven digs while
Lilah Hudson and
Riley Podowicz each had three total blocks.
For the Falcons, Madi Cavell recorded a game-high 14 kills while setter Sara Biondi contributed eight kills ten attacks (.800 pct.) and had a game-high 33 assists. Brianna Leenders led all defensive players with 15 digs.
In both the first and third sets, the Nanooks pushed the Falcons to 23 points, but fell just short of set victories. Head coach
Mallory Larranaga spoke about how the team executed its game plan in those sets and how the team is improving each day.
"We have a lot of stuff we are working on and we're improving every day," said Larranaga. "Of course we would love to see that improvement go faster, but we executed our game plan pretty well in the first and third sets."
"It's a tough balance to be really frustrated with a loss but there are so many good things going on that we know what we need to work on going into Monday's game," continued Larranaga. "We know how to beat these teams, we just have to get better and more proficient at executing our plans."
The Nanooks next play on Monday when they host Montana State University-Billings, at 7:00 p.m. at the Patty Center Gymnasium. Last season the Nooks beat MSUB in three sets and will be looking to repeat that score line.
