PORTLAND, Ore. – Taking their first conference win and sweep in the same match, the Lions defeated the Warner Pacific Knights at their house on Tuesday evening 25-22, 25-18, 25-14.

Despite being down by 7 points early in the first set, Multnomah continued to press in. The two teams were tied up at 22's when a Kamaile Labanon ace and a couple errors from the Knights gave the Lions the win.

Set two started out as the Rachel Bailey show, after she dished an assist to Jocelynn Porter then scored three straight aces to put the Lions up 4-0. Both teams had big kills and big misses, reflecting the intensity that was felt in the gym. Jennifer Crago finished set two with a corner shot from the middle to put Multnomah up 2-0 on the match.

Getting better every set, the Lions took set three with ease. They remained consistent and put the pressure on the Knights, forcing them to hit negative while they had the match high (.308).

The serving game that Multnomah dealt was a huge factor in the win – scoring 10 aces and keeping the Knights out of system frequently. Rachel Bailey and Kamaile Labanon each had three aces in the sweep, with Rayesa Efimov right behind with two. Danae Stokes and Jocelynn Porter led the team in kills with 7 a piece, with Jennifer Crago also a strong contributor after hitting a .667 (4 kills, 0 errors, 6 attempts). Defensively the team was overall solid as well – not letting much hit the floor and running their system well. Alyssa Mehalovich averaged 6.3 digs per set after finishing with 19 total, followed by Kamaile Labanon with 10.

UP NEXT:
The sweep puts the Lions at 2-4 overall and 1-4 in conference. The team will gear up over the next couple of days to prepare for another pair of home games against tough opponents; Friday at 7pm against Eastern Oregon, and Saturday at 5pm against The College of Idaho.