UAA volleyball moves to 6-0 with a pair of wins Friday at Seawolf Invitational

The members of the UAA volleyball team may have still been rubbing the sleep out of their eyes when the team kicked off the day’s slate of matches Friday at the Seawolf Invitational.

But it didn’t take them long to wake up and find the form that has been the team’s signature early this season.

It took half of the first set for the Seawolves to break loose, but they eventually did and cruised to a 3-0 (25-15, 25-15, 25-18) sweep of Emmanuel College at Alaska Airlines Center.

“It was tough,” senior setter Ellen Floyd said of the early start. “I mean, we don’t usually play at 9 a.m. in the morning. So that was a big change for us. And I think that that’s why it took a while to get started. But once we realized that it’s just like any other game, we really don’t have to do anything different except play our game and do what we do every night that we play.”

The UAA offense continued to lead the way. On Friday morning, the team posted a .488 attack percentage, with 46 kills and four errors on 86 attempts. That was the second-best mark in program history since rally scoring was introduced in 2001. It was the second-straight outing with a better-than-.400 attack percentage for UAA, which moved to 5-0 with the win.

The Seawolves pushed their record to 6-0 Friday evening with a comeback win over Point Loma. After falling behind 2-0, UAA rallied to win the next three sets and take a 3-2 (23-25, 21-25, 25-19, 25-9, 15-8) victory.

Senior Lisa Jaunet paced the Seawolves with a career-high 25 kills in the victory. Floyd was a monster in the second match with 50 assists and 15 digs and four blocks. She also set the all-time career record for assists against Point Loma. She finished the night with 3,934, passing Morgan Hooe, who collected 3,920 assists from 2013-16.

After dropping the first two sets, UAA was in a battle in the third. The set was tied at 17-17 but UAA finished on an 8-2 run and grabbed back the momentum.

Floyd said the team chemistry early in the season has bolstered the offense.

“This team is really like family-oriented and we really believe in each other,” she said. “And I think that’s what really helps is when you know that your passer believes in me as a setter and I believe in my hitters. My hitters believe in me so it’s just all around that support really helps produce a good output.”

Senior hitter Eve Stephens continued her stellar play early in the season. The former Colony High standout led the team with 18 kills and just a single hitting error in the day’s first match. Sophomore Nicole Blue and Jaunet added eight kills apiece.

In its first first matches of the season which included a sweep of three teams last weekend in Hawaii, UAA had yet to drop a set.

“In Hawaii, we played three matches last last weekend and played pretty well offensively there too,” said head coach Chris Green. “I think our hitters maybe aren’t the always the biggest hitters on the court, but they are very efficient and they don’t make a lot of mistakes and that’s the key.”

The two teams went back and forth early in the first set before UAA broke away with a run to 21-13 lead. From that point, the Seawolves were rarely challenged by Emmanuel.

Serving was another major advantage for the Seawolves. The team registered nine aces led by six from sophomore liber Reilly Plumhoff. But even more frequent than the aces were strong serves that put the Lions in a spot where they weren’t able to execute their offense.

“Serving is a huge part of what we do,” Green said. “I think we’ve led the GNAC year after year and aces per set. We work hard in practice in the serving game. It pays dividends when the other team is not able to pass the ball to the center. Especially a team that runs a fast offense like this team. If the ball is not to the center, then they can’t run their offense. So it’s very important that we keep them from passing the ball right to the center all the time.”