The Eagles women’s volleyball team kickstarted Golden State Athletic Conference play with a bang on Friday, as they took the quick three set victory (25-14, 25-15, 25-14) over the Arizona Christian University Firestorm. This victory moves the Eagles to a perfect 9-0 for the season and 1-0 in conference play.
The match was a fantastic offensive display for the Eagles, as they posted a kill percentage of .456, their highest for the season so far. ACU helped Biola out by committing 21 attacking errors while getting only 24 kills, which contributed to their .024 kill percentage.
Contrary to what has been the case for the majority of the Eagles’ games, there was no standout hitter who got the majority of the kills. In this game, the Eagle with the most kills was freshman Karly Dantuma, who crushed seven kills from the opposite position.
Freshman Christina DenBoer and senior Lauren Hoenecke each contributed six kills, while sophomore Ally Forsberg posted five from the middle. Biola’s two setters, senior Ashton Arbuthnot and junior Tori Moons, did an excellent job of set distribution. The hitters did a great job of putting balls away, committing only four attacking errors. This helped to give six different Eagle players kill percentages of .500 or above.
All three games were very similar, not only in the final score, but in how the points were scored. The games started out with both teams trading a few points, then Biola made at least a four point run, then traded points for a while again, then Biola getting another late run to put the game away. Throughout it all, the Eagles looked calm and collected, from the experienced seniors to the new freshmen as they played in their first conference match in front of a home crowd.
"They were focused; they were ready to go tonight. I thought they were excited about just getting it started. Pre-season is done, we’re back into conference now, and this is sort of the next phase," said Aaron Seltzer, head coach.
The Eagles’ next match is against the Hope International University Royals on Saturday Sept. 12 in Chase gymnasium at 7 pm.
