WALLA WALLA, Wash. – Likely the win made the raw knuckles and gnawed fingernails worth it Saturday evening as Whitman College rallied several times from the brink of defeat to bring home a 3-2 victory over visiting Pacific (Ore.) University in Northwest Conference women's volleyball action at the Sherwood Athletics Center. Certainly the Missionaries' two seniors -- Hannah Linsenmayer and Abby Seethoff -- on their Senior Night will take the win any way they could have gotten it, but the victory also created the team's first two-match win streak of the season.

Whitman improves to 6-14 overall and 4-10 in the conference following Friday's win over Linfield College and the win Saturday over the Boxers (8-14, 5-9).

The deciding fifth game loomed perilously close to a heart-breaking defeat for the Missionaries with Pacific breaking the seventh, of eight, tie scores to go ahead 14-13 on a Whitman attack error. Brooke Randall came up with a solo block for the Missionaries on the next point, however, to even the score one last time. With Linsenmayer serving Whitman pounded out the 15th point on a Shae Kanakaole kill then put the win, and night, to rest on an attack error by Pacific, providing the home team with a 25-15, 25-22, 17-25, 21-25, 16-14 victory.

The start of the match in no way resembled the ending. Whitman trailed 2-1 in the first game before surging ahead and rolling to a 10-point win without trailing again. A 10-5 deficit in the second game took a little longer to rally back from but a service ace from Linsenmayer evened the score at 13-13 and from there the Missionaries were able to out point the Boxers to inch toward a sweep of the match.

Not so fast, though, as Pacific steam rolled to an eight-point victory in the third game to trim its deficit in half. Early action in the fourth game was back and forth until the Boxers broke a 9-9 tie with a 10-2 run in building an eight-point advantage. Whitman clawed back to within three late, 24-21, but finally faltered on the fourth game point of the set.

Pacific grabbed an early two-point edge in the deciding fifth but Whitman bounced back and eventually moved ahead 7-4 before the Boxers turned the tables to pull all square at 8-8. The drama continued over the remaining points until Whitman's final rally of the night.

The irony of the night was that neither team recorded a positive attack percentage in the fifth game, after both teams were in the positive on the attack throughout the match until that deciding game.

Linsenmayer closed out her home career at Sherwood with match-highs in digs (23) and service aces (3) while Seethoff closed her home career with 16 kills, three digs and 2.5 blocks. Kanakaole led all players in attacks with 21 kills while chipping in with 10 digs and a pair of block assists. As has been the custom for Whitman, Natalia Zea posted a 3.5 blocks night to lead both teams defensively at the net. Zea was part of a net defense that finished with 12.0 blocks to Pacific's 9.0 night.

The Missionaries will finish off the season on the road, traveling to Lewis & Clark College Friday night with the season concluding the next night at Willamette University.