LOS ANGELES — With Alyssa Mort dominating from the outside, Occidental played its best volleyball of the season in Games 4 and 5 to pull off a huge comeback win over Chapman at Rush Gymnasium on Tuesday, 25-27, 25-22, 21-25, 25-12, 15-9.

Mort had eight of her game-high 24 kills, Oxy's defense and passing was as good as it could have been and the Tigers hit .415 as a team in a blowout fourth set that swung the momentum of the match.

Mort's biggest kill of the night broke a 6-6 tie in the fifth set and sparked a 4-0 run that ended with her mixing in a tip shot to give the Tigers a 10-6 lead. Chapman chipped away, getting to 11-9, but Natalie Dwulet finished a quick set from Jessie Altman, teamed up with Mort for a block and finished two overpasses to end the match.

Oxy hit .600 in Game 5.

"It's exciting. I'm glad we stepped up. We've lost some close ones the last few games, so it's nice to get a win against a very good team," said Mort, who hit .370 to go along with her career high in kills. "I stayed aggressive… I think our whole team stayed aggressive. When it got close we didn't back down. We stayed on the attack."

Oxy moves into a tie with Claremont-Mudd-Scripps in the SCIAC standings at 5-3. They are 11-5 overall.

Chapman is handed its second conference loss, moving to 6-2, and 13-7 overall.

It was a big win over a Chapman team that's been receiving votes in the national poll with a very accomplished head coach Mary Cahill, who recently won her 400th career match with the Panthers.

"Chapman and Cal Lu are the top of the conference so if we can beat Chapman, we can beat anybody," Mort said.

Mort and Stephanie Gann were thorns in Chapman's side all night with nearly perfect sets from Jessie Altman, who dished out 61 assists.

"We moved the ball around a lot and ran a lot of quick sets so hitters had single blocks a lot and they took advantage of that," Altman said. "The passing was really good so it helped us move the ball around a lot more."

Gann racked up 20 kills and had big scores in key moments.

Dana Michels finished with 11 kills and Dwulet had 10. Madyson Cassidy led Oxy with 32 digs and Hana Hunt had four aces.

Val Geiger led Chapman with 22 kills and when she got ahold of them, they went nearly straight down. The middle hitter who's fourth in the country in kills per set, hit .410.

Chapman setter Corrine Ostrovsky, the nation's second-ranked setter in assists per set, finished with 50 assists and two aces.

Oxy was solid at times in the first three sets, but it still looked like Chapman had a slight edge.

Oxy held a four-point lead for most of the first as Chapman's sloppy defending at the net resulted in five blocking errors during the set. The Tigers extended their edge to 21-16 after back-to-back points from Gann and an ace from Hunt. The Panthers then rattled off six consecutive points and Oxy had a chance late, but the Tigers committed two service errors and Val Geiger finished two of Chapman's last three points to beat the Tigers 27-25. Gann had seven kills in the set.

Oxy took an 18-14 lead in Game 2 on three service aces by Michels that came during a 7-0 run for the Tigers. Unlike the first set though, the Tigers were able to hold the lead and beat the Panthers 25-22 after Gann put away back-to-back points. Mort had six kills in the set.

The Panthers were leading for most of Game 3. Oxy pulled within one, 20-19 on two aces by Hunt and Michels kill. Chapman recovered after a timeout and rallied to score the six of the next seven points and take a 2-1 lead.

Oxy gets a break from SCIAC action this Saturday, hosting a doubleheader against UC Santa Cruz at 1 p.m. and La Sierra at 7 p.m.