SAN RAFAEL, Calif. – Dominican women's volleyball fell 3-1 (25-20, 25-15, 22-25, 25-11) Friday night to Azusa Pacific at the Conlan Center.
The Penguins (1-12, 1-7 PacWest) spread the ball around to several attackers on the day with junior outside hitter
Catherine Johnson leading the way with seven kills. Junior outside hitter
Eleni Loizou, junior opposite
Rebecca Smith and freshman middle blocker
Edee Leslie each added six kills.
Julianne Miller led the hot-hitting Cougars (12-2, 6-0 PacWest) with 15 kills and five blocks, while Sara Wagenveld finished with 11 kills. APU finished the match with a .291 hitting percentage.
The teams traded points over the opening minutes until a pair of kills by Miller sparked the Cougars on a 3-0 run to take the 11-8 lead. The Penguins took advantage of several errors to battle back and tie the set on a 4-1 run. Amy Hinnant powered a 4-point APU run late following back-to-back kills with a block to give the Cougars a 21-16 lead and close out on side outs.
APU was able to take control early in the second set going on a big 11-0 run as Katarina Radisic capped it off with three straight kills to make it 15-4. The Penguins were unable to recover from the run as the Cougars took a 2-0 set lead.
Miller powered an opening 7-1 APU run with two kills and two blocks as it looked to close out on a sweep. Dominican climbed back into the match as
Vanna Marquez found the line off a backline kill and the Penguins added a pair of blocks to close the gap to 11-10. The Cougars quickly rebuilt a five-point advantage, but Johnson caught fire finding the floor on three consecutive attacks to close the gap to 18-17. With the score tied at 22, Dominican asserted its will one last time as Johnson finished off the 25-22 set victory with a kill.
Wagenveld led a pair of 4-0 runs early in the fourth set as Azusa Pacific was able to build an 11-4 lead. The Cougars went on to hit .452 in the closing set to continue to extend the lead as they ran away with the 25-11 set victory to seal the match.
Dominican will return to the Conlan Center on Saturday to take on Point Loma Nazarene at 7 p.m. PDT. Live stats and video will be available online.
