AZUSA, Calif. -- Sophomore Whittany Radcliffe collected a career-high 16 kills, helping sophomore setter Raechel Jones cross the 1,000-assist career milestone Saturday afternoon in Azusa Pacific's 25-19, 25-21, 25-21 sweep over The Master's.

"Our goal is always just to focus on our side and our side alone," Radcliffe said. "We don't care who is on the other side of the net, we just need to do our job. Our goal was to use this match to continue to improve and prepare ourselves for our next opponents."

Jones orchestrated one of the most balanced offensive efforts of the year for the NAIA's No. 8-ranked Cougars, setting up 4 different hitters with at least 15 attack attempts. Her 18th assist of the match, finished with authority by sophomore middle blocker Ariel Beetstra for one of her 4 kills, was the 1,000th of Jones' young career.

"In these past few matches, I've seen a lot of growth in Raechel, both in practice and in matches," Cougar head coach Chris Keife said. "She's doing great things on the court and is being more of a leader out there."

Four different Cougars notched at least 7 kills in the 3-set sweep, led by Radcliffe's 16 and a 10-kill effort from senior outside hitter Jill Baker, who reached double figures in kills for the 11th straight GSAC match.

"(Spreading the ball around) has been a goal of mine," Jones said. "We have Jill, who is just amazing, and sometimes it's easy to forget all the other great hitters we have. It's exciting to see that for us being such a young team, we're seeing leaders pop up everywhere on the court."

Sophomore Krista Brenner matched her season-high with 8 kills, and she had a hand in 3 of the Cougars' 4 blocks in the match. Sophomore middle blocker Amy Alkazin had 7 kills, 6 digs, and a block, while sophomore outside hitter Marguerite Hanna returned to the court for her first live match action in 3 weeks to post a match-high 14 digs.

"It's going to be good to get Marguerite back in the front row, so we can continue to have a better balance," Keife said. "We've been working with our setters on location and choices, and having a little bit more rhythm as a team. We want to get more players involved, because we'll be relying on them later in the season."

Sophomore libero Robin Portela added 12 digs for an Azusa Pacific defense that limited The Master's to just 30 total kills in the match.

Radcliffe hit double-digit kills in just 2 sets, tallying 5 kills in a pair of opening sets that Azusa Pacific led wire-to-wire. She added 6 more in the final set, including the first and last points of a match-clinching 13-4 run that erased a 17-12 deficit.

Caitlyn Ramirez led The Master's with 15 kills, and she was the only Mustang with more than 6 kills.

With the win, Azusa Pacific keeps pace with the Golden State Athletic Conference leader, defending NAIA champion and top-ranked Fresno Pacific, which survived a 5-set battle with No. 3-ranked California Baptist to preserve the Sunbirds' unbeaten regular season.

The Cougars are now 15-5 overall and 6-2 in GSAC play, moving into a 3-way second-place tie with California Baptist and Concordia, while The Master's drops its sixth straight match to fall to 9-9 overall, 1-7 GSAC. Azusa Pacific wraps up the first half of the conference schedule next week when it hosts Hope International on Tuesday at 7 p.m. before visiting No. 2-ranked Concordia next Saturday night.