WHO WHAT WHEN WHERE…
PULLMAN, Wash. -- Several Cougars contributed career-high statistics as the Washington State volleyball team (17-14 overall, 6-13 in Pac-12) defeated Arizona State (10-21, 0-19) with set scores of 25-22, 25-15, 22-25 and 25-21 Wednesday night before 794 fans in Bohler Gym.
Junior right side
Claire Martin had a career-high 12 kills while not committing a hitting error in 17 attacks for a .706 hitting percentage, and led the match with six blocks.
Taylor Mims led the match with 24 kills while hitting .263, had a match-high two aces and tallied six digs and two blocks.
Ella Lajos had a career-high 14 kills, hit .478 and had five blocks
Jocelyn Urias added 10 kills and four blocks.
Ashley Brown had another double-double with 54 assists and 15 digs.
Sophomore libero
Alexis Dirige became the 11th Cougar to reach 1,000 career digs. She had 16 digs Friday night which places her career total at 1,012 digs, ninth-best in WSU's all-time records.
WSU hit .349 for the match, the ninth time this season the Cougars have hit over .300 in a match, and held Arizona State to a .241 hitting percentage. WSU won the kills category 69 to 51, the digs column 63 to 56 and dominated in blocks, 10 to five.
WHY & HOW...
WSU Head Coach Jen Greeny said, "I felt like it was a great team effort. Offensively, I thought we did some very nice things all over the net.
Ashley Brown did a nice job as well. I thought we did a really nice job of giving the ball to many different players. Jocelyn on the slide did a fantastic job; we got the ball to Ella quite a bit in the middle.
Claire Martin had a fantastic night on the right side, and of course our outside hitters are going to get those attempts as well."
On the slow start for the Cougars blocking game, Greeny said, "Sometimes it takes a little while to figure out the tempo and hitting tendencies of the team, especially a team like Arizona State that we haven't seen before this year. It takes a little while; but we settled in, did a nice job serving, and got our blocks done."
Junior middle blocker/opposite Claire Martin said, "The team's plan tonight was just to come out swinging and play our hardest against this team. We knew they were going to come out hard against us, we had to come out harder. I think we'll have even more momentum coming out against the Huskies, of course. The momentum will, for sure, be coming with us to Seattle."
NOTES…
- WSU was 37th in the NCAA RPI index coming into the match with ASU.
- This is the fourth straight match Taylor Mims has tallied 23 kills or more.
- This is the third consecutive win over ASU for the Cougars, even though the teams met only once this season.
- The Cougars held Pac-12 digs leader Halle Harker to a 4.25 digs per set average, below her 5.30 dps average that is 22nd nationally.
- Claire Martin moved into fourth place on the WSU all-time career total blocks standings with 413 while she remains at third in career block assists with 379.
- Attendance: 794
MARK YOUR CALENDAR…
Washington State (17-14 overall, 6-13 in Pac-12) travels to Seattle for the Fri., Nov. 24 Apple Cup Series as presented by Boeing match at No. 12 Washington (23-7, 13-6). The 8 p.m. match at Alaska Airlines Arena at Hec Edmondson Pavilion will be televised on the Pac-12 Networks. The NCAA Championship tournament selection show is Sun., Nov. 26 at 6 p.m. on espnU.
