SIOUX CITY, Iowa -- It may be difficult to fathom just how close Azusa Pacific was to competing for an NAIA volleyball national title, but the ride to the national quarterfinals for just the third time in program history provided one of the entire tournament's best matches when the fifth-seeded Cougars dropped a 4-set battle with fourth-seeded Concordia Friday evening in the quarterfinals of the 30th Annual NAIA Volleyball National Championship at the Tyson Events Center.

"If you compare where we were at the beginning of the year to where we are now, it's definitely a long, exciting journey of improvement," Cougar head coach Chris Keife said. "I thought we had a great week, we were peaking and playing some great volleyball. Even with the loss tonight, this was a great match to watch. Concordia executed when they needed to, and we had our chances and opportunities. Of course we'd like to be moving on, but I thought we played great."

Wearing an Azusa Pacific uniform for the last day of her brilliant 4-year career, senior outside hitter Jill Baker validated her candidacy for NAIA Player of the Year honors with 20-plus kills in both of the Cougars' championship bracket matches Friday to break her own single-season kill record. Baker was unstoppable in a 25-20, 29-27, 25-11 sweep over Indiana Tech, posting 21 kills and a .442 attack percentage, and she put away 20 more kills in a 25-19, 24-26, 30-28, 25-18 defeat to Concordia later in the day to finish her senior year with 617 kills. She originally shattered the program's single-season kills record as a 2007 sophomore, registering 615 kills in 1,623 attempts, but she was able to better the mark in 50 fewer attempts in 2009.

She tallied 9 of her 20 kills against Concordia in a pivotal third set, a back-and-forth battle between 2 of the powerful GSAC's best programs this year. Baker's ninth kill in the set gave Azusa Pacific its first of 4 set points at 24-23, and it was no mystery that the third set revolved around the Cougars' ability to get the ball into Baker's hands. Concordia finally came up with a block against Baker to take a 26-25 lead, and the next Cougar sideout pushed Baker to the back row for the remainder of the set. Sophomore outside hitter Marguerite Hanna gave Azusa Pacific its final opportunity at set point at 28-27 with 1 of her 12 kills, but Concordia's Brooke Marino answered with back-to-back kills and Jenna Salo gave the Eagles the 30-28 win and a huge momentum boost heading into the fourth set with a 2 sets-to-1 advantage.

"The momentum shift at the end of the third set really took the wind out of us," Keife said. "That was the pivotal point, and I think Concordia would have been in the same boat if they had lost the third set. It was deflating, and they were on a roll during the times we were struggling a bit."

The closest thing Concordia had to a difference-maker to respond to Baker was junior opposite hitter Amber Ridens, who totaled 9 kills but impacted the match with a powerful serve that netted 6 aces. Azusa Pacific finally solved Ridens' serve by the fourth set, but by that point, the Cougars had run out of gas from a brutal stretch of just over 24 hours in which they won their pool with a 4-set win over No. 8-seed College of Idaho that began at 5:45 p.m., swept Indiana Tech in the playoff round of the single-elimination playoff bracket Saturday morning at 10 a.m. and then had to turn around to face fourth-seeded conference rival Concordia in Friday's 5:45 p.m. quarterfinals.

As a result, the Cougars never led in the fourth set, giving up a 5-point run midway through the set that gave Concordia a 15-9 lead. The Eagles maintained at least a 5-point advantage the rest of the way in sealing the victory and claiming a semifinals berth opposite defending NAIA champion and fellow GSAC rival Fresno Pacific.

"When it got close to match point, with Concordia's lead at 6 to 7 points, it's pretty tough to come back from that," Keife said. "Seeing the journey of Jill and this team this year coming to an end was tough. When you lose a player like her and everything she's meant to our program, and the growth and improvement she made over her 4 years, all of that just made the end of the match even tougher."

Friday's split ends Azusa Pacific's 2009 campaign with a 28-9 overall record, giving this year's set of Cougars the program's highest single-season win total since 1991, which was also the last time Azusa Pacific appeared in the NAIA quarterfinals. The Cougars' 1980 NAIA championship team is the only one in Azusa Pacific's program history to advance past the quarterfinal round of the NAIA's annual national championship tournament.

In Friday's early playoff-round contest, Azusa Pacific recorded 16 kills in each set of the sweep over Indiana Tech and limited the opponent to a paltry .059 attack percentage thanks in part to 9 team blocks. Sophomore right side hitter Krista Brenner led the way with a match-high 7 blocks, and sophomore middle blocker Ariel Beetstra had a hand in 5 blocks, as well.

Sophomore right side hitter Whittany Radcliffe emerged as a viable offensive threat for the Cougars alongside Baker, posting 54 kills with a .353 attack percentage in 5 national tournament matches this week. She wrapped up her impressive week with 12 kills and 3 blocks against Concordia after tallying 8 kills in the Indiana Tech win. Sophomore libero Robin Portela was a defensive standout in the tournament, averaging over 5 digs per set for the week. Portela registered 15 digs against Indiana Tech and came up with another 20 digs against Concordia.

Beetstra and Brenner finished the week with 23 and 17 blocks, respectively, to lead the team's blocking effort. Beetstra's 9 blocks Saturday pushed her season total to 144 blocks and nudged her into the top spot among Azusa Pacific blockers for the second straight season.

Sophomore middle blocker Amy Alkazin ended up just 6 percentage points off the Azusa Pacific single-season attack percentage record of .418, set in 2005 by Jenny Brickner. Alkazin's final .412 percentage reflects season totals of 282 kills against just 56 errors in 549 attempts.

Azusa Pacific fell one victory shy of becoming just the third team in program history to post 30 wins in a season, but the 29-win total ties the third-best single-season win total for a Cougar team.

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