The No. 17 Washington State volleyball team moved to a 14-2 overall record and remained undefeated and tied for first place in the Pac-12 Conference at 4-0 after sweeping California (6-8, 0-4) 25-20, 25-17, and 25-22, Sunday morning before 1,109 fans in Bohler Gym.
This season’s 4-0 start equals the best conference start for the Cougars since the 1997 volleyball season when Head Coach Jen Greeny and Assistant Coach Shannon Wyckoff were players.
“I think it’s great to be able to come out and not play our absolute best volleyball and still get the win in three so proud of this team; it was a great Cougar weekend,” Greeny said. “We definitely need to clean some things up, especially our serving. But I think that will happen next week in practice and we get ready for the next weekend.”
Sunday, WSU was led by the 12 kills and .409 hitting percentage of senior Kyra Holt. McKenna Woodford had 10 kills and hit .450, and Taylor Mims contributed eight kills while hitting .357.Claire Martin and Casey Schoenlein each added seven kills with Martin hitting .462 and Schoenlein hitting .357. Mims led the match with five blocks, Martin added four blocks, and Schoenlein and Hailey Bethune tallying three blocks each. Setters Haley MacDonald and Nicole Rigoni combined for 37 assists. Alexis Dirige had nine digs and Tani Stephens served two aces.
The Golden Bears leaders were Ashten Smith-Gooden with 11 kills (.389), Maddy Kerr with 12 digs and setters Mackenzie Albrecht and Alyssa Jensen combined for 33 assists. Christine Alftin served two aces and four players had one block assist each.
WSU, ranked third-best nationally in blocks per set coming into the weekend, had 10 team blocks to Cal’s two. WSU out-hit the Bears 45 to 34 while hitting .371 for the match and holding Cal to a .224 hitting percentage. Cougars won the digs battle over the visitors, 26 to 20.
On playing Sunday after a big win over No. 9 Stanford Friday night Greeny said, “You know it’s a maturity aspect of our team and we just really need to be able to focus in. We know that every single team in the Pac-12 is really, really tough and we have to be able to come out there and play some better volleyball then we did this morning. But still a great crowd and I love the people that came out to see us play today and hopefully we’ll just continue on.”
After the match sophomore middle blocker Martin said, “I thought I played pretty good, but there is always room for improvement. I didn’t get those blocks by myself and I didn’t get those kills by myself so I am thankful for my teammates. We have worked a lot last year and in the spring, so it all came together this season. We have improved on hitting, digging, blocking, passing, and serving and it has gotten us to the position we are in now. It is fun to go to practice now; it was fun last year but it is more fun this year.”
WSU travels to the Oregon schools this week, taking on Oregon State (8-7, 1-3) Friday, Oct. 7 in a 7 p.m. match in Corvallis, and meeting No. 21 Oregon (11-2, 4-0 pending 10/7 vs. No. 7 UW) Sunday, Oct. 9 in a 1 p.m. match in Eugene.
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