PORTLAND, Ore. – Picking up a hard-fought 3-2 win over the Whittier College Poets and a 3-0 win over the Walla Walla University Wolves, the George Fox University Bruins finished play in the Northwest Conference Invitational women's volleyball tournament Sunday here at Lewis & Clark College's Pamplin Sports C with a two-day 3-1 record. 

The Bruins extended their winning streak to three in a row with Sunday's wins and improved to 3-2 overall.

Whittier (W 26-28, 25-22, 26-24, 21-25, 15-11)

Led by freshman middle Isabel Valentine's 15 kills and five blocks, the Bruins prevailed 26-28, 25-22, 26-24, 21-25, 15-11 over the Poets in a match that went back and forth throughout.

The first set featured 15 ties, nine lead changes, and no lead larger than three points for either team.  There were ties at every number from 21 through 26, with Whittier taking the final two points on a George Fox attack error and a winner by Lauren Whiteman.

George Fox used a 5-0 run featuring two kills by Valentine to take a 10-4 lead in the second set and remained in front until the Poets battled back late in the game to tie it 17-17.  After four more ties, the Bruins broke a 22-22 deadlock on a kill by Betsy Wilhelm, and evened the match with an ace by Wilhelm and a kill by Amanda White.

In the third set, Chelsea Wilson keyed a 6-0 run with a pair of service aces as the Bruins forged an early 11-7 lead.  The Bruins were still up 23-18 when the Poets went on a 6-0 tear of their own and took a 24-23 lead on kill by Vanessa Amran.  A Valentine winner kept the Bruins alive, and a block by Eliza Pledger and Ali Toedtemeier, followed by a White kill, rescued the set.

Set four featured 10 ties, but few lead changes; George Fox led most of the first half of the set before Whittier controlled the second half.  The final tie came at 18-18, then the Poets took the lead for good on a kill by Whiteman and finished the set with a 7-3 run.

There were seven more ties in the fifth set before the Bruins broke an 11-11 tie on a kill by Valentine.  An ace by Jenna Dohren, a Whittier attack error, and a spike by Pledger closed out the match for the Bruins.

Joining Valentine on the attack for the Bruins were Pledger and Stephanie Kerr with 11 kills apiece.  Toedtemeier set up the Bruins' 59 kills with 51 assists.  Defensively, Patti Reeves made 35 digs, followed by Wilhelm with 26, Toedtemeier with 17, and Wilson and White with 12 each. 

Amran and Whiteman led the Poets with 10 kills each, while Amran also had 33 assists.  Adriana Moore had 27 digs, Alayna Rigo 26, Amran 18, Maria Montero 16, and Alyssa Acosta 13. 

Walla Walla (W 25-22, 25-18, 25-7)

Pledger posted 11 kills and made only one error in 16 attempts, a .625 percentage, to lead the Bruins past the Wolves 25-22, 25-18, 25-7 in their second match of the day.  Walla Walla's seven points in the third set were the fewest points scored by a George Fox opponent in a set (other than the 15-point fifth sets) since the college game adopted the rally scoring system in 2002.

George Fox trailed for over half of the first set before a 6-0 run, sparked by two kills by Kerr, gave the Bruins an 18-16 lead.  The Wolves came back for a 20-20 tie, but the Bruins got winners from Kristin Knaupp, Cassie Irwin, Valentine and Pledger in a 5-2 set-closing rally.

Two service aces by Knaupp keyed a 4-0 run by the Bruins to start the second set and they never trailed, though the Wolves stayed close until late in the game.  Ahead only 16-15, the Bruins went on a 9-3 burst to close out the set, with Valentine recording four kills in that span, including three in a row.

In the final set, the Bruins hit .407 with 13 kills and only two errors in 27 attempts while holding the Wolves to a minus-.269 percentage (2 kills, 9 errors).  Pledger had two kills in a 5-0 run to open the set, and the Bruins had two other runs of six and eight points each in coasting to the win.

George Fox hit .202 as a team to minus-.010 for Walla Walla.  Toedtemeier had 19 assists and Danielle Boyd 12, while Reeves made 15 digs, Wilhelm 11, and Knaupp 10 on defense.  Valentine and Kerr each had four block assists.

Torrey Haddad led Walla Walla with five kills and 12 assists.  Danielle Diaz made 12 digs and Heather McFadden 11.

NEXT: George Fox heads for Thousand Oaks, Calif., Sept. 10-11 to play in the Cal-Lu-fornia Tournament at California Lutheran University.  The Bruins will play Occidental College at 3:00 p.m. and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges at 7:00 p.m. on Friday, then Whittier at 10:30 a.m. and the University of California-Santa Cruz at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday.