PULLMAN, Wash. -- Pia Timmer had a team-leading 15 kills and hit .462 to help Washington State volleyball (16-7, 8-4 Pac-12) dominate Cal (7-15, 0-12 Pac-12) in a 3-0 (25-6, 25-18, 25-22) sweep Sunday afternoon in Bohler Gym. Timmer's 15 kills moved her into a tie with Brittany Johnson for 10th all-time in career kills (1,118) at WSU while the win for the Cougars was their sixth-consectuive sweep in the all-time series against Cal.
Washington State improves to 12-0 hitting over .300 as a team, finishing at .388 (42-9-85) collectively in Sunday's win which was also the 10th sweep of the season so far for WSU. The Cougars are also a perfect 13-0 when winning the opening set and 11-0 when taking the first two as Washington State dominated play throughout Sunday's match.
The Cougs opened the match on a 9-0 run that included four aces from
Karly Basham who finished the match with a team-high five aces. Washington State never looked back as it held Cal to negative hitting (-.160) as a team en route to a 25-6 win in the opening set. WSU was a perfect 6-of-6 on sideouts and hit .435 with only a single attacking error in the opening set while
Pia Timmer was able to put down four of her first five attacks for kills to start the match.
"Volleyball is interesting game because you can dominate a first set like that but the match has to reset at 0-0 and we knew that Cal was much better than we saw in that first set," said Head Coach
Jen Greeny. "They definitely made some adjustments but we were able to maintain that level of play and stay consistent throughout the match," said Greeny.
Magda Jehlarova had a quiet first set but finished with six kills, three aces and five total blocks in the match. Basham added four assists and six digs to her big night at the service line and
Argentina Ung led the Cougs with 10 digs on the afternoon.
The Cougars tallied four of their eight blocks in the second set and again jumped in front early with a 6-0 run after giving up the opening two points. Ung dished out 13 of her 32 assists in the second set and Timmer tallied another seven kills to help the Cougars go up by two sets in a 25-18 second set. Cal went on a short run late in the second before Washington State finished things off on a solo block from
Weronika Wojdyla.
The third set saw more momentum swings than the first two with 13 ties and four lead changes, including a late swing that gave Cal a 20-19 lead off of a Golden Bears' block. The ensuing point saw an extended rally which was capped off by a clutch swing and kill from Timmer to even things at 20-20. A loud block from Ung and Jehlarova capped a string of three-straight points for the Cougs and they quickly earned a match point opportunity with a 5-1 run to go ahead, 24-21. Cal held off the first match point before Laura Jansen put the finishing touch on the sweep with her seventh kill of the match.
"We really try to approach every match the same way and we talk to our team about one match at a time," said Greeny. "This is a good group that knows what's at stake. They know it is important to win at home and now see if we can now go get a few more on the road."
Washington State will make its Oregon trip next weekend beginning with Oregon State on Friday, Nov. 4, at 6 p.m., followed by Oregon on Sunday, Nov. 6, beginning at 12 p.m.
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