PARKLAND – Looking to avenge last month's five-set loss in McMinnville, the 19th-ranked Pacific Lutheran volleyball team did just that Saturday evening, sweeping Linfield in a Northwest Conference match at Names Family Court.
Pacific Lutheran improved to 17-4 overall and 10-2 in conference play with the win, maintaining its tie atop the standings with Whitworth. Linfield fell to 8-9 overall and 7-5 in the NWC. The Lutes return to action next weekend and will host Lewis & Clark on Friday at 7 p.m.
NCAA Div. III digs leader Amber Aguiar finished with 27 digs to tie for the fifth-most in PLU history in a three-set match, while Samantha North tallied 36 assists. Kylai Cooley posted a match-best 11 kills to go with nine digs, and Lucy Capron picked up a double-double with 10 kills and 12 digs. Kailana Ritte-Camara led Linfield with nine kills, while Caiti Barrie posted a .467 attack percentage with eight kills for the Wildcats.
PLU took an early 8-3 lead in the opening set, but Linfield battle back to tie it up at 11-11 and kept the run going to take a 15-13 lead following a kill by Molly McTaggart. That prompted a PLU timeout, and the Lutes responded with seven consecutive points to turn the two-point deficit into a 20-15 lead following a service ace by Taylor Komagome. A service error ended the run and Linfield pulled back to within three at 22-19, but PLU closed out the 25-20 set win on an error by the Wildcats.
The second set was a back-and-forth contest that saw six lead changes and 14 tie scores. Linfield held the largest lead in the set following an attack error by the Lutes that gave the Wildcats a 19-16 advantage. A Wildcat error sparked three straight points by PLU to tie it up at 19-19 and following a tie at 20-20 the Lutes didn't trail the rest of the way. The Wildcats fought off PLU's first set-point effort with a kill by Barrie, but PLU closed out the 25-23 win on a kill by Amy Wooten.
PLU made it a little easier in the final set, hitting a match-best .286 while never relinquishing the lead. The Lutes built an early 9-5 lead and maintained the four-point advantage through to 15-11 before Linfield used a 7-4 run to pull within one point after scoring three straight. PLU took a timeout, and just like in the first set, the Lutes followed with a dominant stretch of scoring as PLU scored the final six points and capped the match victory with a kill by Capron.
The Lutes hit .194 for the match while limiting Linfield to a 0.78 attack percentage. PLU has four matches remaining in the regular season, with the first three at home before the regular season finale at Willamette on Nov. 7.
