After falling in five sets at The Master’s (Calif.) College on Wednesday with the fifth set being 15-13 in favor of the host Mustangs, the Lady Cougars (5-2) were looking to bounce back on Friday morning against Oregon Tech. MVNU played with much more consistency than it had on Wednesday as the Lady Cougars posted a 25-17, 25-27, 25-17, 25-21 victory over the Owls (0-4).

Junior middle hitter Jackie Albrecht led MVNU with 16 kills and 19 digs, while senior right-side hitter Courtney Springer (left) and sophomore middle hitter Gina Porto each pounded 15 kills with Springer adding four blocks and 15 digs. Senior outside hitter Julie Haumschild smashed a career-high nine kills, and junior middle hitter Sarah Yutzy tallied eight kills and seven blocks. Senior setter Kaylin Austen handed out 49 assists to go with 14 digs, while junior defensive specialist Caitlin Myles and freshman outside hitter Kaylee Hewitt each posted 10 digs with Hewitt also serving up two aces.

“I was pleased with the way we played in this match,” said MVNU coach Paul Swanson. “We were much more consistent in the back row and improved on a lot of the areas we struggled in on Wednesday. It was important to get off on the right foot in this tournament against tough competition.”

The Lady Cougars next turned their attention to Vanguard (2-1), a member of the extremely competitive Golden State Athletic Conference that has produced five of the last six NAIA national champions in women’s volleyball and features six of the top 10 teams in the NAIA preseason poll this year. After MVNU dropped the first set 21-25, the Lady Cougars bounced back to win the second set 25-18.

In the third set, the nationally-ranked Lions built what would seemingly be an insurmountable 24-18 advantage and was serving for set point. However, despite having its back against the wall, MVNU began to inch closer as Porto slammed four kills and Vanguard committed two attack errors to give the Lady Cougars a 25-24 advantage. One more attack error by the Lions followed to give MVNU the 26-24 victory as the Lady Cougars completed their run of eight straight points to take a 2-1 lead in sets in the match.

Vanguard answered with a 6-1 run to start the fourth set as the Lions looked to send the match to a fifth and deciding set. However, once again, MVNU began to chip away at the lead as the Lady Cougars were able to knot the score at 13-13.

From there the two teams traded points with the score still tied at 18-18. Two more kills by Porto and a kill by Springer put MVNU on top 21-18, but Vanguard closed the gap to 22-21. Then, Yutzy, Albrecht, and Springer registered consecutive kills to put the exclamation point on the Lady Cougars’ first-ever upset of a nationally-ranked Top 10 team as MVNU took the set 25-21 to claim the match.

Porto finished with 15 kills and five blocks to lead a balanced attack, while Albrecht added 14 kills and 12 digs. Springer posted 10 kills, 13 digs, and two aces, and Austen handed out 44 assists to go with three aces and 11 digs. Austen (right) also became the program’s career assists leader during the match as she now has 4,320 assists in her illustrious career to pass the mark of 4,286 assists set by former standout setter Andrea Rudd from 1998-2001. Myles added 17 digs and two aces to the winning effort, while Yutzy recorded three blocks.

“This was definitely a great performance by our team tonight,” said Swanson, who has seen plenty of great wins among his NAIA-leading 890 victories but never one over a Top 10 team. “I am so proud of the way the team competed tonight. They could have been satisfied with just winning one set against a ranked team, especially when they fell behind in the third set. Instead, they did exactly what we preach every day in practice - they went at it one point at a time and were able to put together an amazing comeback against an outstanding team.”

“We did a lot of the little things well in this match and that is what it takes to beat a team of this caliber,” Swanson added. “We were creative at the net, consistent in the back row, and tough and efficient with our serving. When you add that all up, it comes out to a really nice win for our team.”

The Lady Cougars will look to build off the momentum from the big win on Saturday morning when the team will take on Embry-Riddle Aeronautical (Ariz.) University at 9:00 a.m. PST. Then, MVNU will close out the tournament at 5:00 p.m. PST against host and No. 8-ranked Point Loma Nazarene.