VB | Gaels Make Trip to the Pacific Northwest to Take on Portland and Seattle U

MORAGA, Calif. — Despite two hard fought defeats to the top two teams in the WCC this past week, Saint Mary's is playing some of the best volleyball that they have this season, holding leads in all eight sets against Pepperdine and LMU, and hitting their stride with three weeks to go in the regular season. That final stretch begins this week, as the Gaels head north to take on Portland and Seattle U on the road.

THE DETAILS
Saint Mary's Gaels at Portland Pilots
Thursday, November 12 at 6 p.m.
Chiles Center – Portland, Ore.
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Saint Mary's Gaels at Seattle U Redhawks
Saturday, November 14 at 1 p.m.
Redhawks Center – Seattle, Wash.
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…AND THEN THERE WERE FIVE…
With three weeks left to go in the season, the WCC has become a five team race, with your Gaels still in the mix for the conference crown, along with LMU, Pepperdine, San Diego and Santa Clara. This top-five matches the top-five teams in the preseason poll, with both LMU and Pepperdine tied for first place with, ahead of preseason number one San Diego, and Saint Mary's one spot ahead of where they were picked to finish, and Santa Clara one spot below. In the final three weeks of the season, LMU, Pepperdine, San Diego and Santa Clara will all have to play one another, while the Gaels will have to play just Santa Clara, giving them a path to a very strong finish and a chance to finish atop the WCC standings.

APPROACHING 1000
Between her time at UIC as a freshman and sophomore, and her junior year here at Saint Mary's, outside hitter Antonie Kelnarova is fast approaching 1000 points as a collegiate volleyball player. The Prague, Czechia native has scored 965 points in her career, and has averaged 4.40 point per set this season, making her 1000th point certainly within reach this week.

ABOUT THE PILOTS
After a 10-3 start to the year, Portland has won just one of their last eight contests, falling to 11-10 overall at 4-8 in WCC Play. 7th year head coach and Saint Mary's alum Megan Burton will need to see her squad win four of their final six in order to reach a new career-high for wins, after setting that high with 14 last year. Despite the recent tough sledding, middle blocker Taina Kaauwai continues to shine for the Pilots, leading the country with a 0.519 hitting percentage, and helping Portland to the third best hitting percentage as a team (0.239) in the WCC. In their first meeting this year in Moraga back on October 10, the Gaels bested the Pilots in four sets, despite a 16 kill, 7 dig performance from Kalaweloilehua Chock. The Gaels were just one of six teams this season to hold Kaauwai to a sub-0.500 attack clip. All-time, the Gaels lead the series 51-28 going into the 80th all-time meeting.

ABOUT THE REDHAWKS
Year two in the WCC for Seattle U has been difficult, with the Redhawks sitting at 4-18 with just one conference win over winless Pacific. Dan Behnke became the program's fourth winningest coach this season, and needs to close out the season winning five of their final six in order to set a new career-high for wins at the helm of a DI school. When these two sides squared off in Moraga, the Gaels swept the Redhawks, but two of the three sets needed extra points to be decided. Freshman Orinayo Olukanmi had five kills and four blocks to lead the scoring for Seattle U in that one, while fellow freshman Tamara Unga added seven kills. Saint Mary's leads the all-time series with six wins in six total meetings between these two new conference foes.

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Antonie Kelnarova

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