By Ron Smith

With two more wins today, Westmont Volleyball has continued its historic run through the regular season, improving its record to 23-0. The Warriors concluded a four-game Iowa road trip with 3-1 victories over Concordia of Nebraska (25-21, 22-25, 25-22, 25-15) and Northwestern of Iowa (25-14, 25-14, 23-25, 25-21).

Today's wins followed a pair of victories yesterday over Saint Mary (Neb.) and #11 Dordt (Iowa). The former in three sets and the latter in five.

"Both Northwestern and Concordia were really strong teams today," remarked Cook. "They definitely challenged us, along with Dordt (Iowa) yesterday. Those three matches were everything we had hoped for and more. We came out here to get challenged and they definitely pushed us to play at a very high level.

"It was a great learning trip for us – learning how we respond when we travel a long distance, how we respond when we play teams at a high level with tall players and how we respond when we get down a set. This was a huge confidence booster."

In the match against Concordia (13-14), Westmont posted a .284 attack percentage and held the Bulldogs to .193. Taylor Beckman and Libby Dahlberg led the way with 15 and 14 kills respectively. Jessica McCann and Sam Neely each added nine.

Against Northwestern (11-13), Westmont hit .174 but held the Red Raiders to .070. Beckman produced 12 kills while Dahlberg and Neely each added 10. Cassidy Rea came up with eight more kills to add to the Warriors' effort.

A key to Westmont's sweep Iowa was the Warriors' extensive firepower and ability to adapt to their opponent.

"Each team that we played had a stronger block in different position," reported Cook. "We were able to gear up our offense according to where their weaker block was. With a lot of the teams, going to our right side was effective because the opposing middle blocker was not as quick closing to that side. So Cassidy, Sam and Sarah McGough all had a good offensive weekend.

"But against Concordia, they didn't have that strong of a block against the (left) side so we went outside a bit more. Northwestern had seen us play against Concordia and had scouted us and knew we liked to run our middle. So, we relied on our outside and right sides for that.

"It's nice having good arms and being diverse in our offense."

The triumphant Warriors, who return to campus as the only undefeated team in the NAIA, are ready to launch into the second round of GSAC play.

"I told the team when we came out here that we needed to put our GSAC season on the shelf and focus on what we were going to do in the postseason," said Cook. "Now that we are coming back, we will take the desire to win a GSAC Championship back off the shelf. That has been a huge motivating factor for us in our GSAC games."

The Warriors, who have not won a GSAC Championship since 1993, are 8-0 in the GSAC standings and currently hold a two-game lead over #16 Biola (15-7, 6-2) and The Master's (14-9, 6-2). Vanguard (8-13, 5-3 is three games back and Hope International (10-8, 4-4) is four.

Westmont begins its final eight-games of the regular season by hosting two games over Homecoming weekend. On Friday afternoon at four o'clock, the Warriors will take on William Jessup. Then on Saturday, the Warriors will match up with Menlo at two.