The No. 7-ranked Sea Lions defeated The Master's 3-1 (24-26, 25-23, 25-15, 25-16) Friday night in Golden Gym. PLNU improved to 11-0 and open GSAC play 1-0. Reining NAIA Player of the Year, Tabitha Henken, slammed a match-high 23 winners while teammate Alyssa Pitkin added 13 kills and 19 digs in the four-set triumph.

PLNU played better and better as the match progressed. But early on the Sea Lions had trouble passing, though they shored that up and started getting the ball to Henken and Pitkin. The first two sets could have gone either way but ended up being split between the two squads, The Master's winning by two in the first and the Sea Lions staving off a late charge to win the second by two points.

The final two sets were controlled by PLNU which won by 10 and nine points, respectively.

The offensive one-two punch of Henken and Pitkin were the only two players in the green and gold to register double-figure kills, but the team got contributions from many, including Maddie Dahms (eight kills, two block assists), Kylie Morel (39 assists, 11 digs, two block assists, two aces), Nicole Eiler (25 digs, three aces), Ashley Romberg (12 digs) and Stacie Redmond (five total blocks).

The Mustangs (8-3, 0-1) were paced by 10 winners from Caitlin Ramirez and nine winners each from Sarah Oskam and Tanya Benkendam. The two latter players combined for 36 digs. Emily Gray added 25 assists and 10 digs.

Neither side hit for a high percentage. PLNU made a lot of unforced errors early with TMC doing the same late. The Mustangs made nine costly service errors while PLNU hit serves long or into the net seven times.

The Sea Lions ended up out hitting TMC .138-.084 and had 49 kills to 42 from the Mustangs. PLNU also led in digs (93-88), assists (47-39) and blocks (7-6).

The Sea Lions host No. 1 ranked Fresno Pacific at 3:00 pm Saturday.