HONOLULU - It was another valiant effort on the part of the Chaminade University women's volleyball team but it was not enough.
For the second straight night, the short-handed Silverswords made things interesting before running out of gas as Point Loma handed them a 24-26, 25-10, 25-19, 25-19 loss Saturday at McCabe Gym.
The defeat dropped Chaminade to 17-9 overall and 10-8 in the Pacific West Conference, all but ending any hopes for a post-season berth.
The 'Swords went to reigning PacWest Player of the Week
Keani Passi who responded with 28 kills, eclipsing her personal high of 25 she set the previous night against Dixie State. She also had 10 digs for her 15
th double-double of the season. Passi, who has 52 kills in her last seven sets, saw her kill average sky-rocket to 4.25 on the year. The Pearl City native entered the week averaging 4.01 kills per set.
Cassie Rushlow put down 12 kills and two blocks for the 'Swords while
Terezie Cernosek had four kills and two blocks.
Natashya Enos set a career-high with 41 assists while
Brenda Walker had 20 digs.
Heather Leavitt led the Sea Lions (19-9, 13-6) with 17 kills in a match that featured two of the top three attackers in the PacWest. Leavitt entered the match as the PacWest's kills leader while Passi was third.
The Silverswords, who had only eight players in uniform for the second straight match, went to Rushlow early as the junior put down six straight points via kills in the first set. Then Passi took over, hammering down Chaminade's next five points on kills to keep them within reach midway through the first set, down 19-17.
The 'Swords then forced the Sea Lions' Bethany Mandon to commit two straight attack errors which tied the set at 20 to which Point Loma rallied back to force set point at 24-22. After a Silverswords' timeout, Passi put down her 11
th kill of the set to get the possession back to the home team, then the 'Swords defense forced Mandon into three consecutive hitting errors to give them an unlikely Set 1 win.
In the second set, Point Loma's Itali Andrade served 11 straight points from the service line to break open a two-point Sea Lions lead into a runaway in their convincing second set win.
In Set 3, Chaminade could not sustain momentum, falling behind 17-9. Passi continued to feast on open spots in the defense, putting down three kills then teamed with
Ku`ulei Lynch for a block to spark a 6-0 surge. But the Point Loma had too much down the stretch and leading 21-19 scored the set's final four points to go up 2-1.
In the final set, Passi and Leavitt went kill-for-kill with the Chaminade senior putting down seven in the frame while Point Loma's senior had six. But in the set, the Sea Lions were able to string consecutive points four times while the 'Swords could muster natural points only twice as PLNU handed the them consecutive losses for only the second time this season.
The Sea Lions out-hit the Silverswords .259-.153 and out-blocked them 10-4.
Chaminade also did not record a service ace in the match for the first time since Sept. 12, 2012, snapping a streak of 96 straight matches with a least one ace.
The Silverswords will return to action on Friday when they face BYU-Hawai'i in their final home match of the season. Live streaming audio coverage will be on GoSwords.com.
