SAN DIEGO – Point Loma Nazarene notched its first conference win of the year Friday evening after topping visiting Westmont 3-1 (25-14, 26-24, 21-25, 25-23).  The NAIA No. 5-ranked Sea Lions improved to 9-0, 1-0 GSAC with the victory while the Warriors fell to 2-7, 0-1 GSAC.

Loma cruised to an easy opening set win but staggered out of the gate for the second.  Westmont took an early 4-1 lead in the stanza before the Sea Lions charged back to even the score at 5-5. The Warriors went back ahead by three in the teens of the set and seemed in position to take set two when leading 20-16. PLNU's Taylor Lane stopped the bleeding with a kill followed by two from teammate Tabitha Henken.

The two squads traded points the Sea Lions completed their rally and tied the score at 23-all. Westmont claimed the next point and was one away from squaring the match but a winner from Destiny McIntyre and a Warrior error gave the set and a 2-0 advantage to Point Loma.

WC quickly went up 8-3 in the third before a PLNU surge pulled the team to within two of the Warriors. Once again, though, Point Loma's momentum faltered and Westmont went out in front by eight points on two occasions (15-7) and (17-9). The Sea Lions closed the gap to two but could not complete the comeback, WC winning by four.

Though they came in with a losing record, the Warriors kept proving that the first set was the night's fluke, maintaining a slim lead through the start of the fourth set. Delaney McCraney and McIntyre traded winners on a four-point run that, however, and PLNU found itself up by three (16-13).

But back came the Warriors who pulled even with the Sea Lions after rolling off three consecutive points. A Henken kill put the Sea Lions back on track and leapt out to a 22-18 lead and closed out the Warriors 25-23.

Henken (22 kills, 9 digs), McCraney (15 kills, 4 blocks), Alyssa Dwyer (8 kills, 4 blocks), Taylor Lane (8 kills, 14 digs) and McIntyre (6 kills, 6 blocks) paced the PLNU attack up front. Natalie Hamill did most of the work at setter, notching 35 assists and 9 digs; Nicole Eiler and Caitlin Bernardin contributed 19 and 10 digs, respectively.

The Warriors were led by 14 winners from Tessa Martin with both Madison Serrano and Marie Trudelle adding 9 kills.

Point Loma hosts Fresno Pacific Saturday at 3:00 p.m.