PORTLAND | The Warner Pacific University Women's Volleyball team (1-18, 1-15) played in their 3^rd five-set match of the season tonight, but was unable to come out on the winning side as they drop this match to their crosstown conference rivals, the Multnomah University Lions (4-13, 3-13), by a final set score of 25-21, 18-25, 25-21, 17-25, and 11-15.

WPU played some of the best team ball that Knights' fans have seen all year in the first three sets of tonight's game, especially in set one where they held the Lions to a negative overall kill%. Despite Multnomah jumping out to an early 9-15 lead, Warner Pacific battled back to take the set 25-21, and their first set against the rival Lions this season.

Set two was of a very similar nature as the first, but in the opposite direction for the Knights. Rather than climbing uphill to go up 2-0, they squandered an 8-3 lead and allowed the Lions to even this contest at a set apiece.
The third set went just about as well as it could for Warner Pacific, as they never trailed Multnomah at any point and tallied a season-high 5 service aces in the set, all by four different Knights.

However, the Knights just didn't have a win tonight written in the stars, as they went on to drop sets four and five to the Lions, where they only scored 13 kills over the two final sets.

Leading the charge once again for Warner Pacific was senior outside hitter Grace Buchanan, who put together another masterful double-double performance with 25 kills and 17 digs, which were both team-highs tonight, whereas her kills were a game-high mark. Sophomore opposite hitter Tevlin Britten and senior setter Matalasi Laban each had their own double-doubles as well, with Britten scoring 10 kills and 11 digs, and Laban dishing out 39 assists partnered with her 10 digs.

Multnomah setter Rachel Bailey had the best game of her college career today with a career-high 52 assists for the Lions, along with 11 digs to have Multnomah's only double-double on the evening. The rest of Multnomah's offensive stats were evenly spread amongst the rest of the starters, most notably going to middle blocker Hannah McPhetridge and outside hitter Danae Stokes, who each had 16 kills in their victory. Three different Lions had 11 digs, with the game-high 19 digs going to Lions' libero Alyssa Mehalovich.

Warner Pacific Women's Volleyball will be back on the court in La Grande, Ore. and Caldwell, Idaho to face the Eastern Oregon University Mountaineers and the College of Idaho Yotes, respectively. These games are set to start at 7pm PST on both upcoming Friday and Saturday matches.