No. 1 Fresno Pacific Downs No. 12 SOU in Raider Volleyball Classic
ASHLAND, Oregon -- Top-ranked Fresno Pacific won the battle of ranked teams tonight, scoring a 25-18, 25-16, 25-20 victory over 12th-ranked Southern Oregon University in match four of SOU’s Raider Classic at McNeal Pavilion.
Fresno Pacific finished Day 1 with a perfect 2-0 mark, while SOU sits at 1-1. Fresno Pacific takes on Simpson University at 9:30 a.m. Saturday and then Fresno Pacific and SOU play in the finale at noon.
Brittany Pierce led Fresno Pacific with 12 kills and Tarin Tartaglia had a match-high 38 assists. Freshman Kalista Harrison led the Raiders with eight kills and Sarah Holgen finished with six kills.
SOU got the home crowd in the match early with a block by senior Mia Wortel and Harrison for an early 1-0 lead.
The Sunbirds took advantage of a SOU attack error to push the lead to 10-7, but SOU came back and cut the lead to 11-10 on a pair of Fresno errors.
The two teams battled back-and-forth and the Raiders again cut it to one at 14-13 on a Harrison kill, but a 5-0 run gave Fresno plenty of breathing room.
In the second set, Fresno jumped out to leads of 10-5 and 19-11 and held SOU to a -.091 attack percentage to go up 2-0 heading into what would be the final set.
In set three, the Raiders hung tough, cutting the lead to Fresno lead to 19-17 on a Harrison kill, but three straight SOU errors put Fresno up 22-17 and they would go on to win 25-20.
Lindsey Stone had 23 assists to lead the Raiders and Harrison and Maggie Rivers shared team-high honors with six digs.