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Volleyball Caps Regular Season with 3-1 Win at Pacific

Volleyball Caps Regular Season with 3-1 Win at Pacific

STOCKTON, Calif. — Santa Clara volleyball played 116 points in the first two sets against Pacific in Tuesday night's regular season finale at the Spanos Center, and split the pair of stanzas that each went past the 25-point mark. The Broncos dominated the Tigers after the break and rolled to a 32-30, 26-28, 25-15, 25-10 West Coast Conference victory.

Santa Clara finishes the regular season at 22-8 and 13-5 in WCC play. The Broncos find out their postseason fate Sunday night at 6 p.m. when the NCAA Tournament selection show airs on ESPNU.

"Our girls showed great resilience tonight," head coach Jon Wallace said. "The last two road games helped us get to grind mode for tonight. We got back to work and made things really hard for Pacific."

Sabrina Clayton used consecutive kills to put the Broncos (22-8, 13-5 WCC) on set point at 24-22 in the opening frame. The Tigers (17-12, 8-10 WCC) responded with a kill and an ace by Maycie Labass to tie the set at 24.

The teams traded the next 12 points — with Santa Clara getting on set point six times — before the Broncos got back-to-back kills from Clayton and Lacey Maas to capture the 62-point set.

Clayton had seven kills in the first set and led the Broncos with 16 on the night. Nikki Hess added 15 kills and Anna McCreadie hit .667 with 11 kills. Labass topped all players with 20 kills.

In the second set, it was Pacific that took a 24-22 lead and Santa Clara that fought off two set points on a kill by Hess and an ace from Mary Shepherd. Holland Crenshaw gave the Tigers a 27-26 lead on a kill and combined with Kimmy Whitson on a block to even up the match heading into the break.

Santa Clara went on a 7-2 run to take a 20-11 advantage in the third set. Kirsten Mead set the Broncos to a .538 hitting percentage — including 16 kills and only two attack errors — in the third frame. The Broncos won 14 of the last 15 points in the match as part of a dominant fourth-set win. 

Mead (46 assists, 12 digs) and McCreadie (11 kills, 10 blocks) each tallied a double-double in the victory. Jensen Cunningham matched the team-high with 10 blocks and Danielle Rottman had a team-high 18 digs while adding five assists. 

The Broncos have won 22 games in each of the past two seasons. Their .733 winning percentage is the best since 2006 and .722 winning percentage in conference play is the best since 2007.