After starting the season with nine underclassmen a year after losing six seniors, the Eagles weren’t on many lists to compete for the national championship in December. Ranked No. 20 in the preseason poll, Biola has slowly climbed the ladder to the No. 10 spot, defeating four top ten teams along the way.
The Eagles finished their regular season with an important win over the same team that got them started on their big run a month ago: Point Loma. When they first met this season, Biola beat the then-No. 9 Sea Lions and started a streak of nine wins over their final 11 matches.
Biola finished their regular season on Nov. 14 with another win over Point Loma and honored their seniors in their final home game. Fittingly, the Eagles were also able to honor senior libero Katie Stevens, who in the previous match against Azusa Pacific collected career dig number 2,000 for her career. Stevens has held the Biola career record for digs since the ‘08-’09 season, but getting No. 2,000 was still special.
“I have never gone out on the court aiming to be a record holder, but at the same time it is fun and exciting to play all four years and have some accomplishments, especially with the success that we have had as a team along the way.”
As she has all season long, senior middle blocker Kelsey Christopherson anchored the Eagles attack against Point Loma with 13 kills in 30 swings for a .400 attack percentage. Stevens had a familiar statistic – her 23 digs were the match high, giving her a total of 494 on the season.
Meghan Cunningham, the Eagles third senior, finished off her home career with a bang — recording nine kills in 20 attempts and six blocks.
The Eagles opened the match in dominating fashion with a 7-0 lead that forced an early Sea Lions timeout to stop the Eagles momentum. It did little to stop the dominating Eagle front line who hit .394 in the first set with only one hitting error.
It was a Sea Lion run in the second set that put the Eagles away. After a Christopherson kill tied the game at 13-all, the Sea Lions collected six straight points that would hold to the end of the game. The Eagles came within two at 20-22 but ran out of time and eventually fell 21-25.
The pivotal third set followed the script laid out in the second as Point Loma held another five point lead at 13-18, but this time a Biola run got them back into it as freshman setter Justine Schoneveld served six straight to give Biola its first lead since early in the second set.
Both teams had several chances to win it late in the set, but the Sea Lions held on to fight off three set points at 24-22 and 24-23, and again at 26-25. They eventually put the pressure on the Eagles at 26-27. An attack error by Point Loma knotted the score at 27-all, and a Kim Russell kill gave the Eagles another chance to win, but the Sea Lions fought off yet another set point. The Eagles would not be denied a fifth time, though, and finally took a 2-1 set lead with a 30-28 win.
The fourth and final set was all Point Loma until the very end when Biola earned a 20-20 tie. They the bullied the Sea Lions from then on, earning five of the next seven points to finish the regular season 22-9 and 13-7 in the GSAC.
The Eagles will travel to Iowa for the national championship which will take place from Dec. 1-5. Stevens said the team, which started the season in what many considered was rebuilding mode, has high expectations.
“I expect us to finish above our No. 10 ranking,” she said. “All season we have been playing against the top competition in the nation which really has prepared us for what we are going to see at nationals.”
Christopherson said that the young team has come a long way to reach their current level.
“This year every win was just so meaningful because of how hard we had to work to get there,” she said. “We have had a challenging year but our underclassmen have stepped up to task.”
