BERKELEY, Calif. — Ninth-ranked Washington State volleyball (19-6, 9-5 Pac-12) had 12 blocks as a team and hit .400 (51-13-95) in a 3-0 (25-20, 25-19, 32-30) win on the road at Cal (15-10, 4-10 Pac-12) on Sunday.
Pia Timmer led the Cougars with 14 kills while hitting .385,
Katy Ryan tallied six blocks to go along with 12 kills while hitting (.625), and Magda Jehlárová finished with six kills and eight total blocks as the Cougars snapped a three-match losing skid from the road in Haas Pavilion.
Washington State won each of the first two sets after jumping out to early leads, but played from behind often in a back-and-forth third set. WSU went on a 3-0 run to take an early lead in the third set at 9-7, and later went on a 4-0 run to go ahead, 16-13, the largest lead of the third set for the Cougars. Cal answered with a 7-1 spurt to take a 20-17 lead, but the Golden Bears later squandered three set points as the Cougars pushed the set into extra points. The Golden Bears would go on to fight off five Washington State match points before
Pia Timmer and
Argentina Ung grabbed back-to-back kills to finish off the match after an extended 32-30 third set.
Jehlárová moved up the NCAA rally scoring era career blocks list into fifth all-time, tallying three of her eight blocks in the first five points to help the Cougars jump out to a quick start on Sunday. Four different Cougs registered aces on the afternoon including
Julia Norville who broke a tie with Kyra Holt (2013-16) for eighth all-time in Cougar history, closing out a second-set win for WSU with her ace coming on set point.
Libero
Karly Basham finished with nine digs and was another of the four Cougars to tally an ace on the afternoon while fellow fifth-year senior,
Shea Rubright, got the starting nod at middle for the second time this season and registered four kills with three blocks.
The win was Washington State's eighth-consecutive over Cal as the Cougars extended a series winning streak that dates back to a five-set win in Berkeley back in 2019. Following up on a .417 hitting percentage from the first matchup with Cal — also a 3-0 win for the Cougs — Washington State hit .400 as a team in the rematch while holding the Golden Bears to only .188 (38-20-96) hitting as a team.
Up Next:
Washington State will return to the Palouse next week as it gets set to host its final Friday/Sunday conference weekend of the 2023 season. The Cougars will host UCLA on Friday, Nov. 10, beginning at 7 p.m., followed by USC on Sunday, Nov. 12, beginning at noon.
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