Sept. 14, 2000

Box Score

LOS ANGELES, Calif. -- When two undefeated teams get together, one leaves with a loss. For this season, USC still has not lost a game nor a match, defeating Washington State 16-14, 15-9, 15-8, Thursday night at a sweltering North Gym on the Southern California campus.

WSU is now 8-1 overall, 0-1 to open Pacific-10 Conference play. USC is 6-0, 1-0.

Janae Henry led the match with 15 kills while Antoinette Polk and April Ross each added 12 kills to the USC win. WSU was led by the 12 kills of Chelsie Schafer. Cougars Adrian Hankoff and LaToya Harris each had 11 kills.

The Women of Troy hit .364 for the match while WSU came in at .257.

Game one was a heartbreaker for the Cougars as the battle was a see-saw affair with the teams trading runs and WSU coming up short. USC was ahead 8-4 when the Cougars scored seven unanswered points to take an 11-8 lead. The squads traded points until WSU tallied their 14th point on a hitting error by USC's Henry. Henry tallied another kill to stop the Cougs on the first try at game point. Schafer's long hit put the Women of Troy within two, 14-12. WSU could not succeed at two more attempts at game point. Ross' kill gave USC the sideout and Jennifer Pahl's kill moved the Women of Troy to within one. LaToya Harris smashed a kill to give WSU the serve but her jump serve just touched the net on the Cougars' fourth attempt to win the game. USC rallied with three quick scores on a WSU hitting error and kills from Tracy Lindquist and Polk, winning game one 16-14.

The second game was a long battle with sideouts dominating. With the score knotted at four, USC served eight straight points for a commanding 12-4 lead. WSU came back with three points before Pahl tagged two points and the Women of Troy were serving for game. Hankoff's kill stopped USC's second attempt at game point and Trina Kightlinger added the Cougars' 9th point. Lauren Killian's kill gave the home team the third attempt at game point and Katie Olsovsky's kill sealed the USC win, 15-9.

WSU ran up a 7-4 lead in game three but the Women of Troy fought back to score nine consecutive points. The Cougars were able to stop USC at four serves for the game and the match, but the Women of Troy prevailed, 15-8.

"It's a disappointing loss because had we been able to close out that first game, it would have been a whole different match," Cougar coach Cindy Fredrick said. "We had four opportunities to do that and we let it go. It's a really tough place to play and it's a tough place when the team's ranked number one in the nation but we still had a chance to do it. I thought our outside hitters did a great job of hitting but defensively we did not play real well. Holly Harris had a great middle hitting game. We took away a lot of good things from that but we obviously missed way too many serves. There crowd was extremely abusive - way out of line. And that is something our kids are going to have to get used to but it's also something the Pac-10 has to look at and I'll say that anywhere. It was extremely abusive and personally abusive crowd. That's not what athletics is supposed to be about."

Washington State continues the opening week of Pacific-10 Conference action Friday night at UCLA.

#6 USC (6-0, 1-0) def. Washington State (8-1, 0-1) 16-14, 15-9, 15-8
STATISTICS:
KILLS: Schafer (WSU) 12, Henry (USC) 15.
ASSISTS:  Surplus (WSU) 39, Lindquist (USC) 25, Anderson (USC) 22.
DIGS:  H. Harris (WSU) 9, Jamtaas (WSU) 9, Anderson (USC) 9.
BLOCKS:  Five players (WSU) 1, Ross (USC) 3, Olsovsky (USC) 3.
SERVICE ACES:  Hankoff (WSU) 2, Three  players (USC) 1.
Attendance:  426.