The #2 Concordia Eagles played two more matches to wrap up the Biola Summer Slam on Friday, August 24^th, in La Mirada, CA.  In the first match the Eagles cruised past Southern Oregon for a 3-0 straight sets win.  The Eagles stayed hot, downing #7 Rocky Mountain MT 3-0 for the second time in a week.

Against SOU Brooke Marino led CU with 12 kills, two blocks, four digs, two aces, and a .346 hitting percentage.  Jessica Israel came off the bench with seven kills and a .875 hitting percentage.  Fei Gao had nine kills and eight digs, to go with a .400 hitting percentage.  Madison Ekis added six kills and Jenee Henderson had four aces.  The Eagles out blocked SOU seven to four.

CU jumped on them early with a 10-3 lead capped by two Marino kills.  It was back and forth before Marino and Ekis kills, and a SOU error, made it 16-8 CU.  The Eagles had trouble closing again, but were far enough ahead it made no difference, as they won 25-16.  They hit .333 in the first set. 

The Eagles led 5-2 early in game two on two Marino aces.  Two Ekis kills and two Henderson aces made it 11-3 Concordia, before Southern Oregon burned a timeout.  It became an onslaught after that, as two Gao kills and two more Henderson aces saw the score climb to 17-4 CU.  It was back and forth to the finish before ending at 25-12.  CU hit a ridiculous .588 as a team in set three.

Southern Oregon took a short-lived 3-2 lead in game three, but Concordia took the edge on two Gao kills and a SOU error.  Concordia rattled off four straight points on two Marino kills and two SOU errors to make the score 14-8.  Jessica Israel finished off five kills in the last seven CU points to wrap up the game, 25-12.  CU hit .412 in the final set.

Concordia hit .409 as a team, while holding SOU to .102. 

In the Rocky game Brooke Marino was good again with 17 kills, 13 digs, two aces, and hit .607.  Madison Ekis had 10 kills, seven digs, and hit .389.  Mi Le had 14 kills in the middle while hitting .650.  Fei Gao had 10 digs and five kills.  Jenee Henderson led the offense with 30 assists.  RMU led in blocks five to three.

It took CU a while to get their legs under them in the first set, as Rocky took a 9-6 lead.  Concordia came storming back on two Alex Bozoian kills, three Le kills, and a Kara Vincitorio ace to go up 13-9.  CU held their lead around six the rest of the way to win 25-19.

The teams battled back and forth early in set two before six Concordia kills by six different Eagles made it 13-8 CU.  Two Marino aces and two RMU errors saw the lead balloon to 19-10.  CU held serve to prevail 25-12.

The Eagles took an early three-point lead and led by inspired play by Hillary Crone, who had five kills in the set, won 25-20.  Concordia hit .421 and .400 in the first two sets for a .371 hitting percentage on the game.

Concordia improved to 8-0 on the day and will host their annual Asics/Wyndham Hotel Labor Day Classic inside CU Arena next weekend.  The Eagles open play on Friday, August 31^st at 1 pm against Illinois Institute of Technology.  The big match comes later in the night at 7 pm against #3 Lee University.  Watch both games on the live stream at http://client.stretchinternet.com/client/cui.portal#.