Azusa Pacific sweeps Dordt
By Steven Allspach | Posted: Wednesday, December 03, 2008
A rusty Azusa Pacific team polished its skills to sweep perfection Tuesday afternoon in beating Dordt in pool play (E) in the 2008 NAIA national volleyball tournament at the Tyson Events Center.
"We haven't played in almost three weeks so we were just trying to find our rhythm out there,'' said 6-2 Azusa junior Jill Baker, who led the sweep of the Great Plains Athletic Conference Defenders with 14 kills, hitting .238 in the process. "We had a good first set, but Dordt got stronger in the second.
"Every team here is good so you have to be at your best.''
Baker is one the tourney's individual bests.
With the rest of the tourney to go and her senior year remaining, the former prep standout at Christian High School in Turlock, Calif., has already set the school career record with over 1,600 kills.
"We knew we'd have trouble with their outsides (hitters) and Baker just went right over the top of our block,'' said veteran Dordt Coach Tom Van Den Bosch. "But, she also went down the line, everywhere. She's got all the shots in the book.''
Chelsea Daley, a 6-foot sophomore, also had 10 kills for the Cougars (23-10), who finished no better than fifth in the NAIA's premier league, the Golden State Conference in California that has six other tourney qualifiers.
Kendra Potgeter, a 6-1 sophomore from Byron Center, Mich., a Grand Rapids suburb, paced Dordt with 11 kills, hitting .350.
"Azusa was tall and strong,'' said Potgeter, who helped her Grand Rapids South Christian team to Michigan's Class B state title as a senior. "We didn't block them very well, but we can come back in the next match.''
Larissa Veldhuizen added nine kills and Kelsey Van Dyke eight for a Dordt team that has just one senior.
Dordt (32-8) will now square off with Columbia College of Missouri in its second pool match today at 11 a.m. In a regular-season tournament at Bellevue in late September, Dordt defeated Columbia in four sets.
The top two teams in each of the six pools advance to Friday's single-elimination round.
Columbia, now 40-3, beat the University of Mobile (Ala.) Tuesday 25-22, 25-11, 23-25, 25-15.
Columbia won back-to-back NAIA national titles in 1998-99 and again in 2001 when current Coach Melinda Wrye-Washington guided the school to a sweep of National American (S.D.) in the title match.
Wrye-Washington's team also finished second in 2003 and 2005, losing to Fresno Pacific in '03 and Cal Baptist on its home court in '05.
In Columbia's Tuesday win, 6-1 Flavia Lino, a junior from Sao Paulo, Brazil and a candidate for NAIA player of the year honors, hammered 21 kills, while another Brazilian, 5-11 setter Luana Branco contributed 10 kills.
Lino is the tourney leader in kills, now with 632.
"We haven't played in almost three weeks so we were just trying to find our rhythm out there,'' said 6-2 Azusa junior Jill Baker, who led the sweep of the Great Plains Athletic Conference Defenders with 14 kills, hitting .238 in the process. "We had a good first set, but Dordt got stronger in the second.
"Every team here is good so you have to be at your best.''
Baker is one the tourney's individual bests.
With the rest of the tourney to go and her senior year remaining, the former prep standout at Christian High School in Turlock, Calif., has already set the school career record with over 1,600 kills.
"We knew we'd have trouble with their outsides (hitters) and Baker just went right over the top of our block,'' said veteran Dordt Coach Tom Van Den Bosch. "But, she also went down the line, everywhere. She's got all the shots in the book.''
Chelsea Daley, a 6-foot sophomore, also had 10 kills for the Cougars (23-10), who finished no better than fifth in the NAIA's premier league, the Golden State Conference in California that has six other tourney qualifiers.
Kendra Potgeter, a 6-1 sophomore from Byron Center, Mich., a Grand Rapids suburb, paced Dordt with 11 kills, hitting .350.
"Azusa was tall and strong,'' said Potgeter, who helped her Grand Rapids South Christian team to Michigan's Class B state title as a senior. "We didn't block them very well, but we can come back in the next match.''
Larissa Veldhuizen added nine kills and Kelsey Van Dyke eight for a Dordt team that has just one senior.
Dordt (32-8) will now square off with Columbia College of Missouri in its second pool match today at 11 a.m. In a regular-season tournament at Bellevue in late September, Dordt defeated Columbia in four sets.
The top two teams in each of the six pools advance to Friday's single-elimination round.
Columbia, now 40-3, beat the University of Mobile (Ala.) Tuesday 25-22, 25-11, 23-25, 25-15.
Columbia won back-to-back NAIA national titles in 1998-99 and again in 2001 when current Coach Melinda Wrye-Washington guided the school to a sweep of National American (S.D.) in the title match.
Wrye-Washington's team also finished second in 2003 and 2005, losing to Fresno Pacific in '03 and Cal Baptist on its home court in '05.
In Columbia's Tuesday win, 6-1 Flavia Lino, a junior from Sao Paulo, Brazil and a candidate for NAIA player of the year honors, hammered 21 kills, while another Brazilian, 5-11 setter Luana Branco contributed 10 kills.
Lino is the tourney leader in kills, now with 632.
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