Stockton, Calif. - Facing match point, the Tigers would not be denied a victory in their home opener at the Alex G. Spanos Center as Pacific fought back to capture a tough five-set win over San Francisco on Tuesday night. The win for the Tigers pushed their record to 11-3 on the year and 2-1 in WCC play while the Dons dropped their third-straight match to fall to 13-3 overall and 0-3 in conference play.

Set scores for the match were: 25-19, 23-25, 25-20, 26-28, 19-17.

Playing at home for the first time in 2015 after 13 matches on the road to start the year, the Tigers gave their home crowd their money's worth and then some as Pacific and the Dons went to five, including playing extra-points in the fourth and fifth sets before deciding a victor on the 227th point of the night. Twice the Tigers stared defeat in the face and twice the Tigers put the ball on the floor before turning the tables on San Francisco. After the Dons' ace, Katarina Pilepic, missed on an open swing to give Pacific match-point at 18-17, Pacific's ace would not give the Dons' another chance as junior Lexi Elman hammered home her final kill of the night, sending the crowd into a frenzy and giving the Tigers the big conference win at home. The kill for Elman was her 29th kill of the night, marking a new career best for the third-year outside and her sixth 20+ kill performance of the season.

Prior to Elman's big finish, it was sophomore Maycie LaBass and junior Alicja Wilk that came up with the biggest swings at the biggest moments to stave off defeat for Pacific in the fifth. Facing the first match-point at 14-13, LaBass took the swing to send the set into extra-points as the second-year outside produced her 18th kill of the match setting her own career mark along with Elman. Two points later, Wilk buried a critical point for the Tigers to tie the set at 15-15. One point later she would give the Tigers' their first crack at the match as she teamed with senior Kimmy Whitson on a block before again spotting Pacific the lead with a kill at 16-16. Overall, Wilk ended the night with nine kills to go with a team-best seven blocks.

Before the Tigers could pick up the finish in the extended fifth set Pacific had to battle back against a Don side that jumped out to a 4-1 advantage in the shortened set and even held the lead at the turn, taking an 8-7 score with them as the teams switched sides in the set. 

The fact that the match would need a fifth and decisive set could not have been known early in the night as the Tigers came out firing on all cylinders to start set one. Hitting .310 in the opening stanza, the Tigers ran away with the set late rolling off the final five points of the frame to capture the win. With Elman slow out of the gate, it was LaBass and Wilk who shouldered the load for the Tigers as LaBass produced five kills on seven swings while Wilk led the defensive efforts with three of Pacific's four first set blocks.

Up one set, the Tigers could not get out of their own way in the second set as USF took advantage of an array of Pacific mistakes late to even the set. Leading 19-15, Pacific posted four-straight errors to let the Dons back into the set. With renewed hope, USF turned up its block, posting two of its four set blocks in the final 11 points en route to closing the Tigers out with a 10-4 run.

After the frantic finish to the second set tied the match at 1-1, the Tigers would use their own frantic finish to the third set of the night to take back the match lead over the Dons, two sets to one. Thanks to a pair of controversial calls late that eventually earned Pacific's captains a pair of yellow cards for arguing, the Tigers renewed vigor paid immediate dividends as Pacific rallied from down 19-17 to win eight of the final nine points of the set. Elman was especially fiery after being tagged with a card out a Tiger timeout as the junior came up with four of the final eight points for Pacific with a block and three of her set-high eight kills. 

With the adrenaline spike to end the third set, Pacific could not maintain its energy starting the fourth as the Dons jumped out to an early 6-2 lead. After erasing the deficit and even taking a four-point lead of their own at 16-12 midway through the set, the Tigers could not stop Pilepic, this time behind the service line, as the senior served up a four-point run that put the Dons back out front. The Tigers would never lead again in the set as San Francisco held off the Tigers late despite nine kills out of Elman, finally putting away the contest on the fifth-set point attempt. For the Dons, it was Pilepic that came up with the final kill of the set as she finished with five kills on eight attacks to lead USF.

Overall, Elman finished her career night with her eighth double-double of the season as she added 14 digs to go along with her 29 kills. She would also add a pair of aces to go with four blocks, scoring 33.0 total points. For LaBass, the 18 kills headlined her own double-double as she tallied 11 digs on the night. In all, five Tigers put up double-digit digs on the defensive side of the ball led by sophomore Katrin Gotterba's match-best 19. Senior Mia Feiner chipped in 15 as the Tigers' defensive specialist while Whitson came up with 11 to go with her 56 assists to tally her second-straight double-double. The senior captain also added four kills, three aces, and four blocks to finish with 9.5 points in the win.

Pilepic led the Dons' offensive efforts with 17 kills on .300 hitting as she also posted a double-double with 11 digs. In the middle, Oluoma Okaro tallied 12 kills to go with a team-best six blocks. In total, the Tigers outhit the Dons, .199-to-.148, despite USF posting 12.0 blocks to the Tigers' 11.0. The service game played a huge part in the night for both sides as Pacific served up 10 aces but committed 12 service errors while the Dons finished with eight aces to seven errors.

The Tigers will head back out on the road over the weekend as they head to Los Angeles to take on Loyola Marymount on Thursday night before playing in Malibu at Pepperdine on Saturday afternoon. The match at LMU to start the weekend is scheduled for 7:00 pm with coverage provided by theW.tv.