SAN FRANCISCO — The Dominican University of California women's volleyball team won in epic fashion on Monday night in historic Kezar Pavilion, stealing a 3-2 (17-25, 25-20, 31-33, 25-16, 15-13) victory from rival Academy of Art.
The storylines for the Penguins (10-6/6-2 PacWest) read like a veritable Choose Your Own Adventure book: earlier in the day libero Amanda Lee was named PacWest Libero of the Week for Sept. 26 to Oct. 2, then the Penguins got off to another painfully slow start, rallied back to even the match, then rallied back from six points down in set three only to lose the team's longest set in Division II history, then held the Urban Knights (4-10/2-3 PacWest) to -.026 hitting in set four, won the match thanks to a pair of ART U errors, and with the win passed both the team's overall and conference win total from last season.
Dominican trailed 5-0 from the start and the gap only widended as Dominican fell behind 20-10 and went on to drop the first set. The Penguins got some momentum going in set two thanks to an 8-3 lead that caused ART U to call timeout. The break helped momentarily but the Penguins grew the lead to 20-13. Four of Dominican's next five points came on opponent errors, which time and time again proved costly for the Urban Knights.
Set three epitomized the fight of both teams in a marathon set. The Urban Knights built a 21-14 lead but a 7-0 run by the Penguins evened thet set at 21-21. Ema Causevic's kill gave the Urban Knights the first set point of the frame but her hitting error on the next play evened things at 24-24. In total, there were nine set points between the two teams before, tied 31-31, the Urban Knights broke the seal with another Causevic kill and a Penguins attack error. The 64-point set was the longest in program history in the Division II era for the Penguins, whose longest set up to that point was a 31-29 set in favor of the Penguins over NDNU in 2014.
ART U's momentum spilled over into set four, where the Urban Knights led 3-0 early. A Lee service ace whittled the lead to 4-3, then the Penguins rattled off an 8-1 run for a 10-5 lead. A block from Kate Even andAimee Steinwand built the lead to 20-10 and Dominican fended off a late Urban Knights run to force a fifth set.
The two teams traded the first nine points of the deciding set before ART U took a 6-4 lead on a Penguins attack error. The Penguins evened the set right back up though and the two teams traded points until Dominican took a 13-11 lead on a Steinwand kill down the right side. Back-to-back Bailey Soolsma kills evened the set at 13-13 and forced the Penguins to call timeout. Kabrina Speakman served into the net, setting up Dominican match point, and a Causevic attack error gave the Penguins the win.
Three Penguins reached double-digit kills, led by 14 from Madeline Powelson. Steinwand added 13 andBrittany Latigue tallied 11. Lee was one of three Penguins in double digit digs and led all players with 27. Steinwand added 21 for her 11th double-double and Powelson made it a double-double with 20 digs.Hannah Smith dished out 33 assists and Rebecca Schira added 11 in the win.
ART U was led by 23 kills from Brum. Elisaia added 14 and Causevic had 12 kills. Speakman had 25 digs.
Winners of six of their last eight matches, the Penguins will look to make it four in a row on Saturday at 3 p.m. at Holy Names (1-14/0-7 PacWest). Live stats and video will be provided by the Hawks and will be available at dominicanathletics.com/live.
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