Oct. 19, 2007

Box Score

PULLMAN, Wash. -- The Washington State volleyball team finished the first half of the Pacific-10 Conference season with a 3-0 loss to No. 7 UCLA Friday night on Marcia Saneholtz Court at Bohler Gym. The Bruins, now 16-4 overall, 6-3 in Pac-10 contests, won with scores of 33-31, 30-18 and 30-23, as WSU dropped to 9-14 overall, 0-9 in league action.

UCLA's Kaitlin Sather and Rachell Johnson combined for 33 kills, each hitting .333 for the match. Sather added 10 digs, a pair of aces and a pair of blocks while Johnson had four blocks and two aces. Nellie Spicer set 51 assists and dug up a dozen balls as Ali Daley added 10 kills and 14 digs. Katie Mills led all players with five blocks as the Bruins out-blocked the Cougars 11 to 6.

WSU's Tara West was the sole Cougar in double-figure kills with 11 while Jackie Albright and Kelly Hyder each added 12 digs. Maureen Perez set 31 assists. Albright had the team-high three blocks. WSU hit .164 for the match and UCLA hit .285.

"We had a fabulous first game," WSU Head Coach Brian Heffernan said. "We came out and I thought the team really executed our game plan. When a team like ours, who is struggling to kind of find its way, when they don't win that game it's a bit of a disappointment to them and they become a little bit distracted and get away from the scouting report and the game plan."

The first game saw 21 ties between the two teams as the Cougars came on the court aggressively seeking the win. Tied at 28 points each, WSU committed an attack error and immediately took a timeout to regroup. In the next play, Cougar Cassie Robbins landed a kill to knot the game at 29 points followed by a UCLA attack error which put WSU serving for the game, so UCLA took a timeout. Sather's kill put the game at 30-all but another Cougar attack error gave UCLA the advantage and the Cougs called their last timeout. UCLA could not covert on the next play so the WSU was back in contention for the win with the game tied at 31-31. Kills from Elise Carstensen and Daley gave the Bruins the 33-31 win and deflated the Cougars for the rest of the match.

"What I am impressed most by is that UCLA has a lot of really great volleyball players who are not going up and destroying the ball as super powerful hitters but have great control in range as hitters," Heffernan said. "Not only in their ability to move the ball around the court wherever they want to, but also in their speed; hitting it soft, hitting it hard, and going off their hands. Very good volleyball players and great control on their side of the net."

Asked what the Cougars could take away from their very competitive matches against No. 4 USC and No. 7 UCLA Heffernan said, "Two things right off the bat that stick out as positives; we played well at times last night against USC and then again tonight we look at game one and it is something for us to build on for the weekend."

Washington State travels to Seattle to take on cross -state rival No. 5 Washington (19-1, 8-1) Friday night, Oct. 26.

No. 7 UCLA (16-4, 6-3) def. Washington State (9-14, 0-9) 33-31, 30-18, 30-23
KILLS - UCLA 60 (Sather 17), WSU 40 (West 11)
HITTING PERCENTAGE - UCLA .285, WSU .164
ASSISTS - UCLA 57 (Spicer 51), WSU 36 (Perez 31)
DIGS - UCLA 54 (Daley 14), WSU 42 (Hyder 12, Albright 12)
BLOCKS - UCLA 11 (Mills 5), WSU 6 (Albright 3)
SERVICE ACES - UCLA 6 (Sather 2, Johnson 2), WSU 3 (Small 2)
Attendance:  706.