Corban falls to NAIA’s No. 12-ranked Eagles of Northwest

September 16, 2005

BOX SCORE

SALEM, Ore. – Freshman Chelsea Reeher (Powell Butte, Ore.) led Corban College with 14 kills, including 6 in the third game, but unfortunately it was not enough as the Warriors fell to the NAIA’s No. 12-ranked Eagles of Northwest University, 3-1 (23-30, 16-30, 30-27, 20-30), on Friday night.

Coming into the match, the visiting Eagles had everything to lose – a perfect overall record, a perfect conference record, and a national ranking – while the Warriors could seek to be giant killers.

Despite committing 10 hitting errors in the first game, the Warriors hung tough with Northwest and had the lead on two different occasions (7-5 and 12-10), but could not pull away from the national powerhouse from Kirkland, Washington, and dropped the first game by 7 points (30-23).  Reeher and junior Stacey Casebier (Medford, Ore.) led Corban with 4 kills each in the opening game.

In game two, things seemed to fall off the wagon as the Warriors recorded their lowest hitting percentage of the night (-.100) thanks to 10 hitting errors and only 6 kills.  Meanwhile, Northwest recorded a hitting percentage of .273 thanks to 13 kills and a mere 4 hitting errors en route to winning the second game by 14 points (30-16).

Corban turned things around in the third game thanks to 6 kills from Reeher and fought its way to a 3-point victory (30-27).  Besides Reeher, junior Nina Clanton (Hillsboro, Ore.) recorded 3 kills for the Warriors.

In the fourth and final game, things did not look good for Corban until Northwest was called for an illegal service rotation, which allowed Corban to hault the Eagles’ momentum.  Trailing by 7 (12-5), the Warriors battled back and got to within 3 points (23-20) before Northwest ended the match on a 7-0 run to close out the match (30-20).

Overall, Casebier and Clanton recorded 8 and 7 kills respectively for the Warriors, while senior setter Ashley Walbridge (Troutdale, Ore.) recorded a team-high 31 assists.  Junior libero Becky Horn (Troutdale, Ore.) continued her outstanding work in the back line for Corban, as she recorded both a season and match-high 30 digs.

Sara Bendorf led all players with a match-high 20 kills for Northwest, while Jessie Buck and Lisa Langmade recorded 12 and 9 kills respectively.