West Palm Beach, Fla.- Traveling only five miles to square off against cross-town rival Northwood University, the Palm Beach Atlantic University volleyball team cruised to a 3-0 victory over the Seahawks on Friday night.

A member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), Northwood struggled with consistency from the opening serve as the Sailfish won their second consecutive match after defeating Nova Southeastern University at home earlier in the week.

The Sailfish now turn their attention to Flagler College who will be traveling to West Palm Beach on Saturday for a showdown of NCAA Division II independent institutions at 7:00 p.m at the Rubin Arena.

Using a balanced attack as well as some experimental playing rotations, PBA was led on the evening by junior Brittany Erickson (La Mesa, Calif.) with 15 kills followed up by senior Ali Mitchell (West Palm Beach, Fla/Royal Palm HS) with 14 kills on the night.

Not far behind was the steady play of freshman Kristin Carroll (Billings, Mont.) who contributed nine kills while senior leader Bia Santos (Sao Paulo, Brazil/Palm Beach CC) added in seven kills.

Setting up these heavy-hitters all night long was the consistent play of junior setter Emily Ryerson (Winter Springs, Fla./Winter Springs HS) who tallied 39 assists before giving way to freshman setter Katie Medder (Miami, Fla./Westminster Christian HS). Ryerson performed well all night long as she added seven digs, three kills, two aces, and a block as she shifted between her traditional setter position to the outside.

 Junior libero Jennifer Eldridge (Palm Beach Gardens, Fla./Dwyer HS) paced the PBA defensive effort with 17 digs while Erickson and Santos followed close behind with 12 and 11 digs respectively.

Now 6-4 on the season, head coach Nicole Carter was pleased with the Friday night victory for the Sailfish.

“We played a little sloppy but we were still working hard, and it was nice to be able to reward the girl’s hard work in practice with some court time tonight,” said the first-year head coach of the Sailfish.

With their next opponent only a day away, coach Carter and the rest of the Sailfish squad know they must be ready for a tough opponent in Flagler College tomorrow night.

“We know that they block well and if we can key on their big hitters and play our style of defense then I think we can put forth a good challenge against Flagler tomorrow night,” continued Carter. “We’ve been serving pretty well and if we can continue to play tough then I think we can be successful.”

Flagler wraps up a busy weekend after visiting the Sailfish on Saturday evening as they have two scheduled games on Friday evening followed up by a visit to Barry University on Saturday morning and then on to PBA in the evening.