Red Hawks Move up to Second in Cal Pac

Women's Volleyball - Redding,CA (10/13/2007)

Forget trying to be competitive or finishing higher in the conference standings.

The Red Hawks volleyball team is eyeing the California Pacific Conference title.Right now, Simpson University is very much alive in the Cal-Pac race after beating conference leader Holy Names in four sizzling games 30-28, 27-30, 30-28, 30-27 at the Heritage Student Life Center on Saturday. "It was a huge win," Red Hawks head coach Melissa Church said. "They beat us down at their place, so we had to win this."

The Hawks entered the game atop the Cal-Pac and a game in front of Simpson. Now, the two teams are tied with a 7-2 conference record, with Dominican (6-1) in front and Menlo (5-2) also in the four-team mix.

When the Red Hawks fell in three games at Holy Names on Sept. 7, they were missing some key parts of their attack. Outside hitter Brittany Baldwin had a sore right shoulder that prevented her from hitting. The shoulder is a lot better. Baldwin delivered 27 kills, the last one on match point, and 19 digs to lead the Red Hawks (13-5) to a fifth straight victory. She hit .468 on the match and her younger sister and fellow outside hitter Shelby Sweat added 18 kills. Libero Teddy Sturley had 20 digs, while Sheri Spangler also had 19.

In the first encounter between the two teams, Holy Names defended Shasta's middles well, so Simpson switched up its attack.
"They blocked up the middle well on us last time," said Red Hawks setter Kayla Comer, who had 54 assists on the night. "So, I wanted to set the middle some, but really get the ball to our outsides."

Eventually the Hawks caught on, but it didn't matter. Frequently, Baldwin and Sweat were simply hitting over or around double blocks.
"Shelby and Brittany, they were hitting awesome throughout the match," Church said. "I can't say enough about them."

Simpson also improved its blocking, putting down eight blocks to Holy Names' four.

The Red Hawks took advantage of some early serving errors by Holy Names to grab the first game, but the Hawks bounced right back to even things up in the second game behind the setting of Alyssa Giannuzzi (53 assists) and the athletic hitting of middle Miya Frank (15 kills).

The deciding point of the match came at the tail end of game three. Holy Names was pulling away and a net violation on Simpson gave the Hawks a 28-22 lead. But a Stacy Viss spike started a Red Hawks run. Baldwin added a block and Sheri Spangler followed with an ace. After Comer put down a kill and Baldwin got in a spike, Holy Names had an attack go long and the two teams were tied. Simpson then improbably grabbed a 2-1 game lead when Baldwin and Jackie Nixon got successive kills. "To come back from 22-28, huge," Baldwin said. "We really had to dig deep for that."

Enough of a boost that the Red Hawks erased a 19-16 deficit in the fourth game, going on a 9-3 run. Holy Names got within 28-26, but Baldwin had a kill. On Simpson's second match point, after Hawks middle Kendra Vasquez prolonged the game with a kill, Baldwin suddenly found herself alone on the right side with the ball set to her. "I saw that there was no block and the entire line was wide open," Baldwin said. "I got so excited, I was just praying I could put it down in the court."

She did emphatically, an exclamation point to the Red Hawks' statement that they were in the conference title race to stay.

-ww.redding.com