Los Angeles, Calif. - After dropping the first set of the night, the Tigers came up with three-straight set victories on the road at Loyola Marymount to take a four-set win over the Lions on Thursday, Oct. 1. Starting the new month, the Tigers continued their winning ways as the moved to 12-3 on the year and 3-1 in WCC action while the Lions fell to 9-6 and 0-3 in conference action. 

Set scores for the match were: 19-25, 25-16, 28-26, 25-17.

Out of the gate things did not go the Tigers' way as Pacific's offense never found its footing against an LMU defense that refused to let the ball hit the floor. Tied at 10-10, the Lions used a an unrelenting attack and a handful of Pacific mistakes to roll off an 8-2 run that put the set away. In total, the Lions were able to come up with 18 digs and four blocks against the Tigers' offense, holding Pacific to .000 hitting in the frame while posting a .323 percentage. 

Making adjustments as the teams changed sides, the Tigers found the key to unlocking the Lions' defense as Pacific ran out to a big early lead and never looked back. Making just two errors in the set, the Tigers tallied a .520 hitting percentage as junior Lexi Elman began to pick up steam with four kills on the outside to open the middle for junior Alicja Wilk in the middle as the third-year Tiger was a perfect 4-for-4 offensively. Additionally, it was the play of their senior captain Kimmy Whitson that turned around the match for the Tigers as she came up with three kills and 11 assists, finding the open hitter throughout the entire set. 

Back to even at 1-1, the Tigers looked to put the Lions away in the third as Pacific built a six point lead midway through the set at 18-12. Despite the lead, the Tigers saw the Lions rally back due in large part to a handful of unforced errors. Even with the mistakes, the Tigers were able to still hold the lead, grabbing a pair of set points at 24-22 only to again see the Lions battle back. Twice more the Tigers would be denied the set until finally putting the Lions away defensively after Elman, who posted 10 kills in the set to just one error, rotated to the back row. Defensively, the Tigers came up with four blocks in the set to go with 16 digs including nine from sophomore libero Katrin Gotterba.

Having survived the third set to take command of the match the Tigers pushed ahead early, never relinquishing the advantage the rest of the way. The Lions were able to cut the Tigers' lead to just one at 13-12, but back-to-back blocks by Elman alongside of her middles stopped any hopes of a comeback for the Lions. The only hiccup in the set came late as a scoring error caused a five-minute delay before the score was finally fixed giving Pacific the 18-15 advantage. After winning the argument about the proper score, the Tigers ran off seven of the final nine points of the match to put the Lions away in four. The big run was sparked again by Wilk as the junior came up with two more blocks and another kill to propel the Tigers to the win.

Overall, the Tigers were led by Elman on the outside as the junior came up with a match-best 18 kills on .283 hitting. She would add six digs and three aces to finish the night with 20.5 points scored. Wilk would end her night with nine kills on .375 hitting to go with a season-high eight blocks. Redshirt-freshman chipped in a career-best five blocks for the Tigers who posted 12.0 team blocks on the night. Sophomore Maycie LaBass finished her night with 10 kills and seven digs while Gotterba dug up 20 Lion attacks to lead all defenders.

The Lions saw three hitters reach double-figures in kills with Sarah Sponcil posting 17 kills to go with 11 digs. Jamie Lea added 16 kills while Rachelle Suaava chipped in 11 to go with five blocks

The Tigers outhit the Lions, .212-to-.163, on the night as they out blocked LMU 12.0-to-11.0.

Pacific will look to keep push its winning streak to four on Saturday, Oct. 3 when the Tigers head to Pepperdine to take on a Waves team that suffered a four-set loss to Saint Mary's on Thursday night. The match at the Firestone Fieldhouse is scheduled for 1:00 pm on theW.tv.