Stockton, Calif. - Despite a career-best 20 kills out of their sophomore outside Maycie LaBass, the Tigers could not get past the block of the Broncos as Santa Clara took a 3-1 decision at the Alex G. Spanos Center on Tuesday night in Pacific's final home match of the year. The Tigers loss snapped a three-match winning streak for Pacific which fell to 17-12 on the year and ended the WCC slate of matches at 8-10 and in a tie for fifth place. The Broncos improved to 22-8 on the year and finished conference play at 13-5 and tied for third place.

Set scores for the match were: 32-20, 26-28, 25-15, 25-10.

Through the first two sets of the night the match looked like it was going to be an epic battle between two WCC rivals as extra-points were needed in each set before a victor was decided. In the opening set, the Broncos were able to hold on for the win, taking the contest on their ninth set point attempt after the Tigers fought off eight previous points. In the end, the Tigers had a late chance to steal the set when Pacific took the lead at 22-21 after trailing for much of the frame, but a three-point run by the Broncos put them in the drivers seat the rest of the way. Santa Clara used a nearly perfect offense to take the opening lead as the Broncos hit .500 (19-3-32) in the set led by Sabrina Clayton's seven kills as the junior kept pace with LaBass for the Tigers after the sophomore hit .667 en route to eight first set kills.

Down one, the Tigers clawed their way back into the match with a backline defense that began to pick off every Bronco attack. After Santa Clara was able to find every hole in the first set they ran into trouble in the second as Pacific came up with 28 digs with 14 coming from sophomore libero Kartin Gotterba. The long rallies and extended plays began to fall Pacific's way as LaBass continued her assault with six more kills and no errors on 13 swings as Pacific got the first crack at the set before being forced to fend off two more chances by Santa Clara. After styming the Broncos with a pair of kills out of the middle, Pacific finally got on the board behind a block from seniors Kimmy Whitson and Holland Crenshaw, the fourth of the set for Pacific.

With everything playing even the crowd settled in for what they thought was going to be a back-and-forth finish to the night. Unfortunately for the Tiger faithful the fight they thought they were going to witness turned into a one-sided affair as the Broncos ran away with sets three and four to end the match in just four sets. In each set, the Broncos went on huge runs to put away the contest as in the third Santa Clara turned a 10-8 set into a 20-12 lead before finishing things off on a 15-7 run. The fourth set proved to be even tougher for the Tigers as Santa Clara walled off the net to the tune of nine blocks in the stanza on the way to a 15-point win. They would close the set on a 14-1 run that included 10-unanswered points on the serve of Clayton. 

In total, the Broncos finished the match hitting .336 while tallying 19.0 total blocks to the Tigers' 9.5. Pacific would end hitting just .175 as a team. LaBass led all attackers with her 20 kills after starting the match 16-0-28 before her first mistake. Junior Alicja Wilk ended one kill shy of her career high after tallying 14 kills on .333 hitting to go with four blocks. Gotterba ended with 20 digs while senior Mia Feiner finished her final home match with 10. Fellow seniors Whitson and Crenshaw posted four blocks a piece while Crenshaw tallied nine kills to Whitson's six as the captain also posted 47 assists.

Three Broncos finished the match in double-figures as Clayton ended with a team-best 16 kills while Nikki Hess chipped in 15 and Anna McCreadie posted 11 on just 15 swings. McCreadie came up with the double-double as the freshman tallied 10 blocks. Lacey Maas also finished with 10 blocks and finished one kill shy of the double-double at nine kills.

Pacific closes out the 2015 season on the road as the Tigers play one last match out of conference in Southern California against former Big West rival Long Beach State. The match is scheduled for 7:00 pm from the Pyramid in Long Beach on Friday, Nov. 27.