AZUSA, Calif. – Juniors Aliyah Morrison tallied a match-high 13 kills and Sara Wagenveld added 11 as Azusa Pacific posted its third straight sweep of a PacWest foe, downing Academy of Art, 25-5, 25-19, 25-10, Saturday afternoon in the Felix Event Center.  The win puts Azusa Pacific alone at the top of the PacWest after one week of conference play.

The Cougars made quick work of the Urban Knights, hitting at a .465 (46-6-86) clip and using a defense that produced 10 blocks to stifle an Urban Knight attack that was held to just .011 pace and only 22 kills.

"One thing we focused on this past week in practice was serving tougher, which leads to better blocking and better overall defending," said Azusa Pacific's 15-year Head Coach Chris Keife.  "We did a good job this afternoon of defending against their attack and stopping it."

The Cougars needed just 14 minutes to take the first set, rolling out to a 13-0 lead to start the match.   All-American Julieanne Miller and Morrison each tallied four kills, while an efficient set of Cougars committed just one attack error, converting 15-of-25 attempts.

"All match long our setters did a nice job of finding the hot hitter," added Keife.

Academy of Art took three of the first four points of the second set before Wagenveld spurred a 12-3 run with three kills of her own to help the Cougar re-take control of the set at 13-7.  Academy of Art rallied to within two at 18-16 before the Cougars used a set-closing run of 7-3 in which freshman Emma Svagdis tallied four of her five kills for the match.

The Cougars cruised again in the third set, running out to a 16-2 lead on the strength of 9-0 run during Kaylen Higa's serve.

"Conference is always challenging, and you don't always have an opportunity to get everyone involved," said Keife, "but this afternoon we had some reserves get some quality time that will pay off for us down the road."

With the victory Azusa Pacific has won four of its past five matches to improve to 7-4 overall, 3-0 in the PacWest.  Academy of Art falls to 0-10 overall, 0-2 in the PacWest.

Azusa Pacific is off until next Saturday when it hosts Point Loma Nazarene in a 3 p.m. match that signals the start of four straight match against some of the PacWest's best teams.

"We're in a good spot," said Keife. "Our girls are excited and engaged in practice, and we're still getting better.  Having a challenging nonconference play the past two weekends helped us focus on where we need to improve, and we'll need to be sharper with matches against Point Loma, Hawaii-Hilo, Hawaii Pacific and Chaminade coming up."