Washington State University Athletics
Volleyball Takes 3-1 Win at Oregon State
November 21, 2015 | Volleyball
CORVALLIS, Ore. -- Using strong blocking and a diverse offense, the Washington State volleyball team (16-14 overall, 5-13 Pac-12) grabbed a conference road win over Oregon State (5-23 overall, 3-15 Pac-12) Friday night at Gill Coliseum in Corvallis, Ore. The set scores were 25-20, 25-17, 21-25, and 25-18.
A trio of Cougars had double-doubles tonight led by Kyra Holt with 18 kills and 12 blocks. McKenna Woodford had 11 kills and a career-high 17 digs while Haley MacDonald had 45 assists and 10 digs. Casey Schoenlein had a career-high 11 kills hitting .435, and equaled her career-high with eight blocks. Claire Martin led the match with a career-high 11 blocks and tallied five kills. Ella Lajos contributed seven kills, hitting .312, and had three blocks. Kate Sommer had 12 digs and Tani Stephens added 10 digs. Woodford and Stephens had two aces each.
Mary-Kate Marshall led Oregon State with 16 kills. Lanesha Reagan and McKenna Hollingsworth each double-doubles with Reagan landing14 kills and 10 digs while Hollingsworth had 23 assists and 13 digs. Kayla Ellis had 15 digs and Jessi Seumalo led OSU with four blocks.
WSU out-hit the Beavers .248 to .143, out-dug OSU 66 to 59, and out-blocked the home team 15 to 7.5.
The opening set was a see-saw battle with 15 ties and six lead changes. Tied at 17-all in the opener, WSU went on an 8-3 run to win the opening set 25-20 as Schoenlein tagged five kills while hitting an outstanding .714. Cougars went ahead in the second set 19-7 and kept the distance with a .382 team hitting percentage for the 25-17 win. WSU was ahead in the third set 19-18 when the Beavers scored five straight to go ahead 23-19 and closed it out with a 25-21 win. WSU took an 18-11 lead in the fourth but OSU battled back to close the gap to 22-18. Martin, Schoenlein, Woodford joined on a block that set the tone for the Cougars to close out the set with a 25-18 win and take the match 3-1. WSU hit .393 in the fourth set.
“I thought we played pretty well; just a little bit of let-down in the third set but besides that we played a really solid match and had great contributions from a number of players,” WSU Head Coach Jen Greeny said. “Casey was so smart with the ball, mixing up her shots, was solid at the net and played an all-around great match. I'm glad she's finally feeling healthy and it's great to have her out there. Both of our outside hitters started out kind of slow but they both picked it up and particularly Kyra, down the stretch for us, did a really nice job for us. I thought we blocked really well and part of that comes from our serve, making them pretty predictable. I'm really proud of the effort on the blocking front.”
WSU travels to Boulder for an afternoon match against Colorado (16-13 overall, 8-9 Pac-12 pending 11/21 match vs. Cal) Wednesday, Nov. 25 and then meets No. 2 Washington (26-2 overall, 16-2 Pac-12 pending 11/25 vs. Utah) in Seattle, Saturday, Nov. 28, at 8 p.m. The WSU at UW match will be broadcast on the Pac-12 Networks.
