SPOKANE, Wash. – On a night when both teams struggled to find offensive consistency, Whitworth used aggressive serving to sweep visiting George Fox 25-22, 25-15, 25-22 in the Northwest Conference volleyball opener for both schools on Friday night at the Whitworth Fieldhouse.

The Pirates (6-3 overall, 1-0 NWC) finished with nine service aces and kept the Bruins out of system with several other challenging serves.  George Fox dropped to 2-6, 0-1.

Whitworth really struggled offensively in the first set as the Pirates struggled to get used to the absence of OH Cassandra Mendoza, who was out with an injury.  Whitworth finished with ten attack errors and only eight kills in 36 attempts for a hitting percentage of -0.056.  But after trailing 19-16, Whitworth used a timeout to spark an 8-1 run that gave the Bucs a 24-20 lead on the way to the 25-22 conclusion.

The Pirates' serve started took maximum effect in the second set.  Whitworth served seven aces in that set, including three by Erin White and two each from Chloe Luedecker and Emiko Kahler.  The Bucs' offense also got going too as they hit .238 to run away with the set by a 25-15 score. 

"This was absolutely our best serving match of the season, which is encouraging because it was a focus in practice this week," said Whitworth head coach Kati Bodecker.  "It was great to see us serve tough without adding a lot of misses."

George Fox took a 9-7 lead in the third set on a block by Delaney Cruz and Amy Massingale.  But Whitworth rallied to take an 18-13 lead after a kill by Kahler.  The Bruins closed back to within 23-22 after a kill by Danyle Dupray.  But Iris Tikhonov answered with a kill for Whitworth and Kahler finished the match with her final kill.

Brenna Bruil led Whitworth with seven kills and she was in on five blocks.  Tikhonov added seven kills off of the bench.  Kahler had five kills and a team-high 11 digs.  White dished 26 assists and totaled three aces.  While the Pirates only finished with a team hitting percentage of .074, the Bucs scored nine points on aces and seven on blocks.  They also benefitted from six George Fox ball handling errors.

Bodecker was happy with how her team responded without Mendoza, who leads the team in kills per set by a wide margin.

"We just had to get over some nerves before we settled in and competed," Bodecker said.  "Ultimately we played hard and played together."

Dupray had a match-high nine kills for GFU.  Massingale had six block assists while Kelsea Meyers added 13 digs.  The Bruins were only able to hit .063 as a team.

Whitworth will host Pacific (Ore.) on Saturday night while George Fox travels to Whitman.