MORAGA, Calif. — After a brief hiatus of indoor play, Saint Mary's Volleyball returned to their home court inside University Credit Union Pavilion in a big way on Tuesday night. The Gaels took on Pacific for the first time this season, and blocked them out of the building. Thanks to their best performance of the season on the block, Saint Mary's was able to sweep Pacific with finals of 25-23, 25-21, and 25-18, improving their record to 5-6 while dropping the Tigers to 2-7.
 
CAUTION: BLOCKS AHEAD
Tuesday night featured one of the best blocking performances of the season from Saint Mary's. As a team, the Gaels put up a total of 15 blocks in the match, the third most in a WCC match this season. Many Gaels were involved in the lofty totals, but the performance from Jennifer "Boo" Laird stood out above the rest. Laird set a career-best with ten total blocks, including nine assisted blocks, while also slamming down seven kills with zero errors. Hawley Harrer had her best blocking performance as a Gael, with five assisted blocks, while Elena Baka (one solo, four assisted) and Trinity Durfee (four assisted) also put up some of their best numbers of the season at the net. For all the blocks, Saint Mary's only allowed one on the Pacfic side.
 
ERRORS APLENTY
Saint Mary's was firing at the net, and that forced Pacific to be errant on their attack. The Tigers racked up 35 errors on the evening, compared to just seven from Saint Mary's. This led to the Gaels recording their best attacking percentage of the season (23.5%) while holding an opponent to their lowest mark of the season (3.1%). While the Gaels didn't need many swings to take advantage, five Gaels found themselves over 22% on the night: Alosina Thompson, Laird, Durfee, Selbie Christensen, and Harrer.
 
SURVIVING THE FIRST
The first set was the key to the entire evening, as Saint Mary's raced out to a 5-0 lead, and the eventually fell behind 19-15. Saint Mary's then got the next six points, and seven out of eight, to take a 23-20 lead. Chandler Cowell got the run rolling with a kill, and then it was Christensen and Durfee who gave the Gaels the three-point lead. With the score at 24-23 in favor of SMC, Baka closed out the first set with a kill of her own to cap off the come-from-behind win for the Gaels, and propel them forward into the second set.
 
BROWNING BITES
"We are always happy with a win in this conference. Pacific is a very good team and they have performed better than we have against some of our other conference rivals. Very happy with our blocking tonight. We've been waiting for a breakthrough there and we got it tonight. I thought our setters did a really nice job. Alosina Thompson made some great saves and put our hitters in a position to get kills in some difficult situations. We've got work to do but we are getting better every week." – head coach, Rob Browning
 
LAIRD DECLARES
"I'm really proud of the way we fought tonight. We played with a sense of urgency from the very first point which kept us focused and on task, especially with our blocks and execution of our offense. I saw a lot of grit in my teammates, most notably in those clutch moments at the end of each set where we took care of business and finished strong. We look forward to continuing this momentum into our matches this weekend!" – Jennifer "Boo" Laird
 
UP NEXT
Unlike other series that the Gaels have played this year, they will not take on Pacific tomorrow afternoon. Saint Mary's will host the USF Dons on Friday night at 5:00 pm inside UCU Pavilion, and then head across the Bay to San Francisco on Saturday night.