Sept. 25, 2010

Box Score

CORVALLIS, Ore. -- The Washington State volleyball team (6-6, 0-2 Pac-10) lost in four sets Saturday night to Oregon State (8-8, 1-1 Pac-10) at Gill Coliseum in Corvallis. Oregon State won with set scores of 25-15, 24-26, 25-22, and 25-15.

Meagan Ganzer and Oceana Bush led the Cougars with 12 kills each, a career-high for Bush who also tallied 13 digs. Ganzer had a career-high eight blocks and Brittany Tillman added seven blocks. Sara Biondi had 33 assists and Kaleinani Kabalis led the team with 15 digs. WSU hit .120 for the match.

Jill Sawatzky and Camille Saxton combined for 27 kills to lead the Beavers. Mona Kressi had seven blocks and three aces. Becky DeFoe had 10 digs while Megan McBride had 31 assists. Kressi, McBride and Ashley Eneliko each contributed four blocks.

"I said in the pregame (radio interview), whoever made the least amount of errors would end up winning and we made too many errors," Cougar Head Coach Andrew Palileo said. "Some of our big players didn't play tonight. I thought Oce and Tilly did a good job tonight maintaining their responsibilities (on the court). We are trying to set a lineup with some of the changes that have happened. I thought we did some nice things today so I hope we continue to get better in the areas we are struggling with."

Oregon State opened the first set with an 8-0 lead and scored the final five points of the set to take a 25-15 win. The Beavs hit .375 and held the Cougars to a .042 hitting percentage. Ganzer had four kills for WSU while three OSU players had two kills each and two players had 2 aces each.

WSU had a 18-16 lead in the second set. The Beavs rallied to knot up the set at 18 and then raced ahead to a 24-19 lead. WSU staved off five set points to tie up the set at 24. Ganzer put up two huge blocks to score two of the seven consecutive points to win this set 26-24. Ganzer had four blocks and three kills as the Cougs hit .214 and held OSU to a team .079 hitting percentage.

Oceana Bush led the Cougs with six kills in this set with no errors in 14 attacks. WSU, down 18-13, scored seven in a row to tie the set at 20. After the teams traded points to knot the set two more times, OSU's Kressi's two kills put the home team ahead 23-21. Bush landed a kill to close the deficit to one but Ganzer served into the net. Alyssa O'Neil landed an ace and OSU takes the 25-22 win.

Oregon State kept the momentum going into the fourth set and waltzed to the 25-15 win, holding WSU to a -.040 hitting percentage.

Washington State returns to Pullman next weekend to host No. 11 UCLA (10-2, 0-1) Friday, Oct. 1, and No. 6 USC (12-0, 1-0) Saturday, Oct. 2.