FAIRBANKS, Alaska – Senior Sam Harthun collected 20-plus kills for the fifth-straight match, but her performance would not be enough to get the Alaska Nanooks volleyball team past No. 25-ranked Central Washington, as their three-match winning streak ends with a 3-1 (20-25, 23-25, 25-21, 15-25) loss on Saturday afternoon.
Harthun continues her push to the Great Northwest Athletic Conference's all-time kills record, as the senior collected a match-best 21 kills to and hit .231 on the day. The 21 kills makes her the first player in program history to surpass the 1,450-kill plateau, as she now has 1,451 career kills just 10 off of Sarah Sommerman's (Seattle; 2002-05) current record of 1,461. Harthun has now collected 20-or-more kills over the past five matches, as she has an impressive 138 kills over the past three weeks.
The Nanooks pushed the No. 25-ranked team in the nation, as Alaska did not lose by more than five points in the first two sets (20-25, 23-25). Head coach Brian Scott's team was able to capture a victory out of the break, as they won set three 25-21, but that would be the only set Alaska would get on the day, as the Wildcats took set four, 25-15, to put a halt the program's longest winning streak in six years.
"We did alright tonight with a lot of things, but we've been on such an emotional roller coaster over the last two weeks with a bunch of five-set matches. We beat the top team in the conference on Thursday and today I think our battery was drained," said Scott. "We were still able to compete with a very good team, as we were right with Central Washington in several statistical categories. We showed that today that we compete with the best in the conference and the nation, but we have to continue to improve in some areas."
Alaska was able to match the 25th-ranked team in digs, as the two were knotted at 49 apiece. Alaska had three players in double-digits in the digs category, as Maddie Davis followed up here career-best 20-dig outing against Northwest Nazarene on Thursday with a match-high 13-dig effort on Saturday. Harthun collected her second-straight double-double and her third in the last four matches with a 10-dig performance. Junior libero Meagan Olsen was tucked in between both players, as she contributed 12 digs on the day.
Redshirt junior Kensey Mix had a career day, as she collected a career-best in both kills and hitting percentage, as she landed 12 balls and hit a remarkable .667 on 15 swings
Alaska will embark on its final road trip of the 2015 season, as they'll take on Western Washington and Simon Fraser next Thursday and Saturday. Both matches are set for a 6 p.m. AKST start time.
For more information on the Alaska Nanooks volleyball team, follow @NanooksVB on Twitter or like Alaska Nanooks Volleyball on Facebook.
