Westmont Volleyball (17-5, 9-3) ran its winning streak to five matches on Saturday afternoon with a 3-1 (25-19, 25-20, 24-26, 25-19) win over San Diego Christian (11-11, 3-9) in Murchison Gymnasium.
Senior Sydney Striff led the #16 Warriors with 13 kills and posted a .333 attack percentage.
“Sydney had nice kills at key points in the match,” said Westmont head coach Patti Cook. “She was one of our clutch hitters today.”
Freshman Libby Dahlberg added 11 kills and seven blocks while posting a .381 attack percentage and senior Missy Fuerst added 10 kills with a .385 attack percentage and six blocks.
“Missy impressed me with her blocking today,” said Cook. Also impressive to the coach was junior libero Kami Troesh.
“Kami was on fire with nice saves digs,” advanced Cook. “She had one of the best games that I have seen.”
The opening set remained close until Westmont turned an 8-8 tie into a 17-9 advantage with a 9-1 run. Sarah McGough started the run with a kill from the right side and Jessica McCann (9 kills) finished it off with a kill from the left
Westmont produced a 5-1 one run to take a 9-5 lead in the second set and never looked back. Striff finished off the set with a kill of an assist by Alexa Nestlerode.
In the third set, San Diego Christian took an early lead when it produced a 7-1 run to go ahead 8-5. After the Warriors battle back to a 21-21 tie on a kill by Striff, the two teams traded points until the scoreboard read 24-24. The set was determined on a block by the Hawks’ Bevan Haskell and Juliana Gutknect, followed by a Warrior attack error.
The back-and-forth battle continued in the final frame. Tied at eight, Westmont scored four of the next five points to take a slight advantage (12-9). The Hawks stayed within three points until the score reached 17-15. That’s when the Warriors pulled away by scoring the next five points. After a kill by Taylor Beckman (5 kills) and an attack error by the Hawks, Fuerst, Samantha Neely and Beckman delivered three kills in a row to give Westmont a 22-15 lead.
Tied for third with The Master’s (18-8, 9-3) in the GSAC standings, Westmont has five games remaining in the regular season – four of which are conference games. On Tuesday, the Warriors will travel to #8 Vanguard (17-4, 10-0) for the final road game of the regular season.
