With the victory the Cougars are guaranteed of moving out of pool play and into Friday's 12-team single-elimination round prior to taking on No. 5 Columbia College (Mo.) Thursday afternoon.

"We played better in yesterday's match but still we won and took the pressure off of tomorrow's match against Columbia," said sixth-year Azusa Pacific coach Chris Keife. "I told the girls going in that this was the one match that would allow us to move on, and we prevailed."

For the second consecutive tournament match, All-American junior Jill Baker paced the Cougar attack with 11 kills in 31 attempts, while sophomore Chelsea Daley followed with 10 kills, including 3 during a 9-3 Azusa Pacific run that closed out the first set.

"Chelsea did a great job with the sets she was given today," said Keife. "She was using Mobile's block attempts very well and getting her points off defections."

In the second set, Azusa Pacific moved out to an 8-3 lead with 5 different Cougars collecting kills in the process. Daley tacked on a couple more kills. Senior Megan Burch registered 5 of her 9 kills for the match during the second set, including a powerful hit that gave Azusa Pacific a commanding 16-8 lead at the time.

"Megan did a very good job on the right side for us," said Keife. "We didn't set our middles much to start the match, but in the second set we went to them which in turn opened the floor for Megan and she successfully put down 5 of the 6 balls we set to her."

In the third set, the 2 teams traded leads most of the way until a 5-point run spurred by the serving of freshman Robin Portela allowed Azusa Pacific to assume a 19-16 lead, capped by another Daley kill. Senior Kelsey Knudsen sandwiched a pair of kills around freshman Marguerite Hanna's kill to finish off the set and match.

"We served well again today," said Keife, as he viewed the box score and noticed the Cougars' 7 serving aces. "The areas we needed to be better were ball control and defending. When we're good there and can remain in our system, we're a very good volleyball team."

With the victory Azusa Pacific improves to 24-10 overall, 2-0 in tournament pool play. Mobile falls to 33-5 and loses any chance of advancing out of pool play.

Azusa Pacific will meet Columbia on Thursday (Dec. 4) at 1:15 p.m. (CST) for the right to be the top team coming out of the pool. Columbia, which captured the 2001 NAIA title and advanced to the 2005 championship match, has won both of its pool matches as well.

"Columbia is experienced team," said Keife. "They have several foreign players who have played at another level, and they have a number of players who know what it takes to compete in the NAIA Tournament. They have a very good setter, and several players who can put the ball down. It should be a great match."