ARCATA, Calif. (Sept. 3) -- The Central Washington University volleyball team was pushed to the brink twice on Saturday, and the Wildcats came away with an even split of its two matches to wrap up play at the HSU Tournament in Arcata, Calif. CWU lost to Cal State East Bay in five sets before rallying past Notre Dame de Namur University in five frames to complete the tournament with a 3-1 record.

Central Washington, which defeated Humboldt State (Thursday) and Academy of Art (Friday) in three and four sets, respectively, was saddled with consecutive matches in the 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. time slots on Saturday. The Wildcats squandered a two sets-to-one lead over CSU East Bay, falling 18-25, 25-18, 22-25, 25-22, 15-9 to the Pioneers, but then came back from a 2-1 match deficit to beat NDNU 26-24, 24-26, 17-25, 27-25, 15-13.

"After a grueling slugfest (with CSU East Bay), we had to emotionally and physically turn our attention to Notre Dame de Namur," CWU head coach Mario Andaya explained. "It was a tough four-plus hours of volleyball but we played some of our best volleyball (of the season so far) during that span."

The Wildcats dropped the high-powered opener to the Pioneers despite hitting at a sizzling .305 clip for the match. Central's top three hitters -- senior Meg Ryan (Spokane/Mead HS), junior Jordan Offutt (Leavenworth/Cascade HS), and sophomore Erin Smith (Selah) -- all hit better than .300 and combined for 53 of the Wildcats' 73 kills. All three also established new career-highs for kills, as Ryan totaled 23, Offutt 18, and Smith 12. Senior setter Carlee Marble (La Conner) had 59 assists to go with 15 digs.

Central's hitting percentage hovered above .300 despite 12 Cal State East Bay blocks. The Wildcats were hampered, however, by eight service errors and eight service aces by the Pioneers.

In the finale against Notre Dame de Namur, CWU rallied from a 13-11 deficit in the first-to-15 fifth set, racking up four consecutive kills -- two each by Smith and junior Marcy Hjellum (Kennewick/Kamiakin HS) -- to rally and earn a split of the day's two marathon matches.

Although Central's offense cooled a bit from its first match of the day, the Wildcats still hit .186 as a team and saw four of their players reach double figures in kills. Offutt emerged as the team leader in kills with a career-best 20, while Hjellum added 15. Smith and sophomore Emmy Dolan (Castle Rock) added 11 apiece, with Dolan's being a career-high and accompanying a .304 hitting percentage.

Each team finished with six service aces in the match, and the CWU defense was led by sophomore Chelsie Vea (Honolulu, Hawaii/Kalani HS) with 24 digs.

Central Washington will continue its nine-match, season-opening road trip on Tuesday (Sept. 6) with a pair of matches in San Francisco, Calif. The Wildcats face Dominican University of California in a neutral-site match at 3:30 p.m., followed by a 7 p.m. contest against San Francisco State University. The California portion of the road trip concludes Wednesday (Sept. 7) at Notre Dame de Namur in Belmont, Calif.