The Biola Eagles women’s volleyball team played three matches this past week, all at The Master’s College Labor Day Tournament. Like the rest of their season thus far, they did not lose a single match, finishing the tournament 3-0 and posting an impressive 8-0 preseason. In the tournament, the Eagles dispatched the Saints of Carroll College, the Capilano University Blues and the CSU San Marcos Cougars in three sets each.

PUTTING UP A FIGHT

In the first match of the tournament for Biola, Carroll College came down from Montana to meet the Eagles in an annual out-of-conference match. In the 2014 season when these two teams last met, Biola won in three sets at Carroll’s home tournament, so the Saints came in looking for revenge. However, as stated above, Biola again got the three set victory, but Carroll put up a fight for it. Both teams had a good match offensively, but Biola’s .316 kill percentage off of 46 kills was enough to overcome Carroll’s .256 kill percentage off of 35 kills. Biola comfortably won the first two sets at 25-19 and 25-18 respectively, but really had to work for the third set. Carroll’s offense stepped up significantly in the final set of the match, forcing the game to go into extra points before Biola finally won the set and match with a score of 27-25.

FASTEST VICTORY

The Eagles had about an hour’s rest before matching up against the Capilano University Blues, a Canadian team Biola has never played before. The Eagles proved themselves a better team, taking the three set victory in one hour and five minutes, which turned out to be their fastest victory of the season. The Eagles started out strong in each match, jumping out to quick leads they would not relinquish. Biola’s offense was again very solid, earning 44 kills and a .367 kill percentage. Senior Alyssa Mason was instrumental in Biola’s offense, as she accounted for 14 of Biola’s kill, setting the season high for amount of kills in a match. Capilano struggled on the offensive side, getting only 25 kills and committing 20 errors, which contributed to their .061 kill percentage.

AN EXCELLENT START

The final team Biola played at the tournament was the CSU San Marcos Cougars, a team that was coming in with an 0-2 record. The Eagles quickly jumped out to an excellent start, winning the first set 25-7. The Cougars more than doubled their points for the second set, but Biola would not be denied, as they took the 25-15 set win. In the third set, CSUSM jumped out to an early 6-3 lead, and looked like a completely different team offensively. Biola kept slowly eating away at the lead, and eventually they went on a five point run to take a 12-9 lead, at which point they would never give the lead back. CSUSM kept fighting, taking 20 points off of Biola, but the Eagles still walked away with the straight set victory in a match that tied the season record for fastest match at one hour and five minutes.

Mason, talking about the start of GSAC play, said, “The team is super excited to start GSAC play. No game is going to be easy, there are going to be a lot of competitive and exciting games this year. Our mindset right now is to focus on our side and just play as well as we know we can.”

Biola’s next matchup is the first of the GSAC regular season, and the Eagles will be hosting the Arizona Christian University Firestorm on Friday Sept. 11 at 7 p.m.