TACOMA, Washington – The return of the Puget Sound Premiere ended in thrilling fashion when the Puget Sound volleyball team beat Pacific Lutheran in five sets (25-20, 25-16, 19-25, 21-25, 15-10) Saturday evening.
 
The Loggers (3-2) raced out to winning the first two sets, but PLU fought back to force a decisive fifth set.
 
In that final set, the Lutes (2-3) claimed a 5-3 lead. Thanks to several PLU errors, however, Puget Sound went on a 4-1 run to take a 7-6 lead.
 
Katherine Carley took over from there. She hammered away three kills as the Loggers closed out the match with a 7-3 run. The Loggers closed out PLU with three consecutive points, one of which was a kill by Carley. The Loggers claimed victory with Logan Winn's fifth kill of the contest.
 
The Loggers finished with a .216 hitting percentage, marking the third time in five games that the squad has hit over .200. Puget Sound won all three of those games.
 
Carley had a team-high 14 kills against the Lutes, and Jordan Holman added 11. Sarah Blumenfeld totaled a season-best 27 assists.
 
Earlier Saturday, the Loggers lost to Southwestern in four sets. Blumenfeld finished with 26 assists. Holman put away 12 kills, and Katelyn Chekian had 11.
 
The Loggers travel to southern California, Sept. 10-11, where they will take on four teams from the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.