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SAN DIEGO— After a hard-fought battle, Point Loma Nazarene lost to undefeated NAIA No. 2-ranked California Baptist 3-1 Tuesday night in Golden Gym (25-19, 23-25, 19-25, 21-25).
The Sea Lions played an outstanding first two sets, recording hitting percentages of .395 and .424, respectively. They fell short by just two points in the second set after senior outside hitter Alyssa Pitkin suffered an injury, causing her to be removed from the match.
By the third, the momentum quickly began to shift as PLNU's hitting percentage of .424 dropped to a low of .163. Meanwhile CBU's percentage rose to .421 in the second and remained high. The Lancers ended up out-hitting the Sea Lions .328 to .287.
"After Alyssa [Pitkin] got hurt we definitely lost some of our focus and our confidence," said freshman middle blocker Alyssa Dwyer.
While sophomores Maddie Dahms and Karleigh Kaczmarek stepped up to the plate in Pitkin's absence, Dwyer confessed, "We needed Alyssa's vocal. We needed more talk and more energy and we lost it a little bit. We had a mental block."
Junior outside hitter Tabitha Henken seemed to have no trouble at all, recording over a third of the PLNU's 61 kills, with 22.
The 6-foot-2 Carlsbad, Calif. native said her strategy for taking on the unbeaten Lancers was to "worry about our game and not what's going on the other side."
While head coach Rochelle Short was happy with the Sea Lions' overall performance, she said she expected a five-game match with more competition.
"We didn't play disciplined defense," she said.
One important factor was that the Lancers, who had trouble passing and setting up their blocking early in the match, shored up thier defense as time went on. CBU kept many rallies alive and turned what seemed sure Sea Lion points into points of their own, especially late in the second set.
PLNU hurt themselves at the service line too, making eight costly service errors while making just three aces. The Lancers struggled to serve as well, making 10 errors, but cashing in on eight aces.
Also, while the loss of Pitkin late in the second game did cause a setback for PLNU, Short was confident it wasn't too detrimental.
"We are deep enough, but we just didn't get our job done," she said, adding, "We just have some early season things we need to fix."
Alyssa Dwyer contributed 11 kills and five total blocks in the loss with Pitkin posting nine winners in her two sets and Karleigh Kaczmarek adding seven kills. The setting duo of Natalie Hamill and Aimee Bird combined for 53 assists. Nicole Eiler had 22 digs.
The Lancers (15-0, 3-0 GSAC) were paced by 20 kills from Ingrid Carmona. Jelena Dragovic had 14 winners on 22 swings while sister Nevena dished out 43 assists.
PLNU now holds a record of 7-5 overall, and 1-2 in conference. They will next travel to Azusa to take on the seventh-ranked Cougars on Saturday, Sept. 18 at 3:00 pm.
