LA MIRADA, Calif. – All-GSAC middle blocker Amy Alkazin picked a fine time to have a "career match," tallying a personal-best 15 kills to lead the NAIA's No. 8-ranked Azusa Pacific to a key Golden State Athletic Conference road victory over No. 18 Biola, 25-22, 22-25, 25-23, 25-20, Tuesday evening in Chase Gym on the Biola campus.

Alkazin was a one-player wrecking crew, practically unstoppable for a Biola defense that threw everything at Alkazin in an attempt to slow her. In the end, though she fashioned one of the finest matches by a Cougar in recent years, registering her 15 kills on just 22 attempts without a single error, to finish a sizzling .682 attack clip. She carried the Cougars in the opening set and again in the third set before All-American Jill Baker finished off Biola and the match with 6 of her match-high 17kills in the fourth and deciding set.

"Amy was unreal tonight," said Azusa Pacific head coach Chris Keife. "She did everything well and was certainly the go-to player tonight. That wasn't our game plan coming in, but as the match unfolded, I could tell she was in a rhythm and I told our setters to keep setting Amy."

The victory snaps Azusa Pacific's 5-match skid to Biola and is the Cougars' first win over the Eagles since 2006.

Azusa Pacific took control of the match with a 7-1 run early in the first set. The Eagle offense belied Biola with 3 attack errors and a service error sandwiched around a Cougar ace that allowed Azusa Pacific to turn a 3-1 Biola lead into an 8-4 Cougar advantage. Azusa Pacific never trailed the rest of the set, leading by as much as 6 before Alkazin's fourth kill closed out the first set.

In the second set, Biola rallied from 3 down by using a set-closing 9-3 run to even the match at a set apiece. The Cougars' efficient offense suddenly went south with a quartet of attack errors that allowed Biola to knot the match at 20-all. A Rachel Buckley kill followed by another Cougar attack error gave Biola a 23-21 lead it would not relinquish the rest of the set.

Azusa Pacific assumed a couple of early 3-point leads in the third set but when Biola caught the Cougars at 11-all on another Buckley kill, neither team enjoyed more than a 2-point advantage the rest of the set, a set that featured 8 lead changes, 7 of which came after Azusa Pacific held a 15-14 lead. The Cougars closed the set with a 4-1 run, using a Buckley attack error to knot the set at 22-22 followed by a Raechel Jones service ace and 2 more Alkazin kills to seal the deal.

"The third set was key for both teams," said Keife. "It was back-and-forth, back-and-forth, and we made a few plays down to stretch to get the 2-1 lead, and that was a huge advantage for us to have on the road at Biola. We were feeling better about ourselves heading into the fourth set."

Paced by a pair of Alkazin kills, her final 2 of the match, Azusa Pacific rolled out to a convincing 6-1 lead to start the fourth set, but the Eagles rallied to within a point at 18-17 to return the match to the nail-biting atmosphere it held through the first 3 sets. However, back-to-back Baker kills kept Biola at bay, giving Azusa Pacific a 3-point advantage at 21-18 and seemingly squashed any thoughts of an Eagle comeback.

The Cougar offense was less than impressive without Alkzin. Minus Alkazin's sterling performance, the rest of the team hit a paltry .025 (29 kills, 26 errors on 119 attacks) at the net, but the Cougars were steady on defense, registering 13 blocks, 6 of which Alkazin had a hand in securing.

"We were out of rhythm on offense tonight and really struggled, but we grinded it out," added Keife. "It's been a long time since we've had 2 wins like this where we weren't at our best and yet still came up with key victories."

Combined with Saturday's victory at Point Loma Nazarene, the Cougars have now posted back-to-back road wins over Top-25 teams and move to 13-4 overall, 4-1 in the GSAC, tied for third place with No. 3 California Baptist, which was upset tonight in 5 sets at Vanguard. Biola falls to 12-4 overall, 2-3 in the GSAC.

Azusa Pacific returns home Saturday (Sept. 26) to host Vanguard in a GSAC match at 3 p.m. in the Felix Event Center. Follow Cougar Athletics online with Twitter updates, at twitter.com/APUCougars. Cougar Athletics is also available on all web-enabled devices through Azusa Pacific's mobile website: www.apu.edu/m.