PORTLAND, Ore. – A healthy combination of both powerful attacks and stalwart defensive efforts allowed the No. 9-ranked Corban University Volleyball team to take their conference opener on the road against Warner Pacific University, sweeping the Knights in straight-sets to advance to 5-1 overall on the early season.
"It was great to start conference play tonight, and even better to earn a road win in the process!" explained Corban head coach Kim McLain. "We must continue to get better with every touch, improving our passing and serving. We look forward to getting back out there tomorrow night in Portland once again."
The offense and defense were working in perfect unison during the opening set for the Warriors (5-1, 1-0), as Corban secured a 25-16 victory with a blazing hot .357 kill percentage and forced the Knights (0-2, 0-1) into eight errors for an even .000 attack percentage for the home team. The struggle for the Navy and Gold was found in their serve-receive thus far, as they had given up three aces in the first set alone.
While the defense continued to force Warner Pacific into difficult attacking plays, the offense cooled down to a more realistic .281 percentage of attacks finding pay dirt, while the Knights finally climbed into the positives seven kills and only five errors despite falling 25-18. To this point in the contest, Corban held a 4-0 advantage at the net in blocks and nearly double the number of kills at 27-15 yet had given up seven service aces to WPU.
With just one set between the nationally ranked Warriors and their first conference win of the season, Coach McLain began implementing her reserve players at a higher rate that saw fifteen different student-athletes earn playing time over the course of the match, including four true freshmen. Having already dominated through the opening sets, junior opposite hitter Makayla Roginski added three more kills over Corban's six-point run to end the contest with a 25-13 set win.
Roginski was perfect on the day in keeping herself out of making mistakes at the net, as she smashed a game-high 12 kills with zero errors for a .600 kill percentage on the right side. The middle blocking combo of senior Allyson Reid and redshirt junior Jadah Schmidtke dunked five kills apiece, while junior opposite hitter Kylie Davey added six more. Meanwhile, junior setter Abby Guindy collected a game-best 20 assists and fell a single dig shy of a double-double with nine in the backcourt.
Defensively, Reid was involved in every single blocking play at the net, assisting on four plays and earning a solo stuff as well. Senior libero Marissa Uehara dug up the game-high mark in digs with 13, while sophomore outside hitter Emma Bischoff led the team with a pair of service aces.
The Knights were led offensively by outside hitter Autumn Gaboury-Parker and her team-high six kills, followed by middle blocker Elizabeth Reid who had five. All-around setter Kyla Reiling assisted on 15 scoring plays and had seven digs along with a game-high four service aces, whereas libero Alyssa Asuncion was the defensive team leader with eleven digs.
Corban volleyball returns to PDX tomorrow for an afternoon matchup with Multnomah (0-5, 0-1) scheduled for 4pm at Jim Skagen Court.
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