SPOKANE, Wash. – Whitworth used a season-high hitting percentage to roll past visiting Pacific 3-0 in a Northwest Conference volleyball match on Saturday night in the Whitworth Fieldhouse.

The final set scores were 25-19, 25-11, 25-18 as the Pirates hit .393 as a team and improved to 9-4 overall and 2-2 in the NWC.  The Boxers dropped to 5-8, 1-3.

Nicole Leonard had 13 kills for Whitworth and hit .423 in the match.  Cassandra Mendoza was even more efficient, drilling a dozen kills while hitting .706.  Shawna Korshavn added seven kills and hit .500.  Maddie Dinsmore directed the Pirate attack while dishing 37 assists.

"We spent a lot of time getting reps in practice the last two days," said Whitworth head coach Kati Bodecker.  "We really worked on picking up the tempo of our sets, which we had gotten away from the last couple of matches.  It was a good night for us and we finished with a low number of errors."

Haley Badell led Pacific with nine kills while Hannah Herbert had eight and Una Areta had seven kills.  Lia Zablan served three aces for the Boxers.

Whitworth jumped to a 5-0 lead in the opening set before Pacific fought back to take a 13-12 lead when Dinsmore was whistled for a front-row attack.  The lead was short-lived.  Mendoza gave the Pirates a 17-14 lead with a kill and Whitworth won the set on a Boxer error.

The second set was tied 5-5 before Whitworth outscored Pacific 20-6 the rest of the way.  The Boxers struggled at the net with a -0.038 team hitting percentage.  Leonard, Mendoza and Korshavn all had three kills without an error in the set for the Pirates.

Whitworth never trailed in the final set and the only ties occurred at 1-1 and 12-12.  But after the Boxers tied it at 12 on back to back aces from Zablan, the Pirates used a 9-2 run to pull away.  Leonard had back to back kills during the run and the Bucs won the match on Mendoza's kill.

"We talked a lot about playing hard, but relaxed, in tonight's match," Bodecker said.  "I think we found that balance."

Whitworth returns to action next week with matches at Willamette (Friday) and Linfield (Saturday) next weekend.