CHENEY, Wash. (November 17, 2018) – Two nights removed from an emotionally-charged first-place showdown and a flight in between, the Northern Arizona volleyball team took Eastern Washington's best shots on Saturday. But the Lumberjacks would not be denied; not with a chance to clinch a share of the Big Sky regular season championship.
Behind a career-high 17 kills from junior
Abby Akin and 13 kills from sophomore
Heaven Harris, the 'Jacks wound up sweeping the Eagles, 25-23, 25-22, 25-14 to seal up their third regular season title in program history. Both hitters were scorching all evening with Akin attacking at a .708 clip and Harris hitting .545 in NAU's 10th consecutive victory to close the regular season.
"This is such a great group; they have shown how resilient and tough they are over the course of the second half of the season," said head coach
Ken Murphy. "I'm just fortunate enough to be their coach honestly."
The Lumberjacks (23-8, 15-3 Big Sky) clinched the top seed in next week's conference tournament and will face the eighth-seed Montana State at a time to be determined on Thursday, Nov. 22. NAU shared the regular season championship with Idaho, but by virtue of its head-to-head win on Thursday, the 'Jacks will go into the tournament with the No. 1 seed.
Akin and Harris ensured that NAU would head to Greeley with its win streak intact despite Eastern Washington putting up a fight in its season finale. The pair were the biggest reasons for NAU's .310 hitting percentage with junior
Abby Stomp recording 44 assists. Stomp also tallied three of NAU's four service aces.
Akin was also a wall in the middle, finding her way into seven of NAU's 9.0 team blocks. Harris and junior
Sydney Lema registered three blocks apiece as Eastern Washington hit .077.
Both teams had runs of four points during the early portion of the first set before NAU seemingly pulled away with a 5-1 run for an 18-13 advantage. Another 4-0 run by Eastern Washington closed the gap to 21-19 and the Eagles were a point away from forcing extra play in the first set, but Harris' fifth kill put an end to the game.
Eastern Washington held an 8-5 lead, after scoring five straight points, in the second set only for NAU to come back with a 5-0 run of its own to retake a 13-10 lead. The teams continued to trade runs until NAU snapped a 22-22 tie – the seventh of the set – with the final three points. Redshirt senior
Kaylie Jorgenson and Harris terminated two kills and Stomp gave NAU a two-set lead with an ace.
With the two tough sets behind them, the 'Jacks rolled in the third set by hitting .500 in the final stanza. Akin had six kills, Harris had five and Jorgenson had four in the third game alone as a 5-0 set-opening run initiated a wire-to-wire victory and put away NAU's sixth three-set sweep during its win streak.
"Tonight, we found a different way to be successful," Murphy said. "Our serve and pass was a little off and we had to scratch and claw in the first two sets. The group kept grinding out points and at the end of the day, it's not about being perfect but it's about figuring it out. This team has done an amazing job of that over the last half of the season."
One of the top digging teams in the country, NAU recorded 57, including a match-best 16 from senior
Jordan Anderson and a season-high 12 by freshman
Ryann Davis, on Saturday/ The Lumberjacks' season total sits at 2,145 – the second-best total in program history only behind the 1999 team's 2,224.
The Big Sky Championship kicks off in Greeley, Colo. on Thanksgiving Thursday. Stay tuned to
@NAUVolleyball on Twitter and
nauathletics.com for match times.
