BURNABY, B.C. – SFU won its second straight Great Northwest Athletic Conference volleyball game as the Red Leafs Saturday evening in the West Gym but not before they survived a scare from the Seattle Pacific Falcons.
 
SFU won the match 3-2, after taking the first two sets 26-24 and 25-18. The Red Leafs were up 15-11 in the third before the Falcons mounted a comeback, winning the third and fourth sets 25-23. The Red Leafs found their form in the tiebreaker, dominating, for a 15-8 win.
 
SFU out-hit SPU .375 to .182 in the tiebreaker with opposite side hitter Brooke Dexter registering five kills in the set. She also had a huge solo block to put SFU up 13-7 in the fifth. The teams were tied 5-5 in the fifth when SFU went on a 9-2 run with kills from Kalyn Hartmann, Sophie Lachapelle and Hanna Kolof.

"I think we showed a lot of poise dealing with whatever came up in the match," said SFU head coach Gina Schmidt. "There were definitely some momentum shifts throughout the game but I felt we did a good job of staying focused on the game plan, and not letting those shifts faze us."
 
The Red Leafs also had four service aces in the final set, and had 23 aces overall, a school record in the GNAC era and one short of the league record. SPU had 11 aces.

"That was something we talked about and worked on at practice this week, and the players did a good job executing what we talked about," said Schmidt on her team's performance Saturday at the service line. "Everybody who got the opportunity hit their targets and specifically in the areas we wanted, so they just did a great job staying focused on that."
 

With the teams tied at 24, Dexter had two straight kills to deliver a first set victory, 26-24. SFU won the opening set despite being out hit by the Falcons, who had a .308 attack percentage compared to .235 for SFU.
 
SFU led 20-16 in set two and went on a 5-2 run to close out the win, 25-18.
 
The Red Leafs were up 15-11 in the third set but the Falcons went on a 7-1 run to take the lead and the teams exchanged leads the rest of the way. Tied at 23, SPU won the next two points to start the comeback.
 
SFU had a .240 attack percentage overall compared to Seattle's .233. SFU performed better than the Falcons in digs 58 to 49 and kills 60 to 48.
 
Dexter led all players with 19 kills and she had four aces. Kolof led all players with six aces and 16 digs. She reached double figures with 11 kills. Ava Khademi also had six aces for SFU. Serena Gentile recorded a game-high 29 assists.

"Our serve was part of our plan going in, and we all stuck to it. We knew if we served tough, we could put them in trouble," said Kolof. "We used everyone coming off the bench, and it took everyone to win that fifth set."
 
Up next for SFU is a road game against No. 11-ranked Western Washington at Carver Gym in Bellingham on Sept. 17.

SFU unveiled its new varsity team name on Tuesday, choosing Red Leafs, a name that honours SFU's iconic leaf that student-athletes have worn for generations and reflects the university's identity as Canada's only NCAA team.
 
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