Oregon State
5-20, 3-12Pac-12
USC
27-1, 15-1Pac-12
OSU Volleyball Falls in 3-0 Setback to No. 2 USC
November 13, 2015 | Women's Volleyball
LOS ANGELES, Calif. – The Oregon State volleyball team fell to the No. 2 USC Trojans in three sets (25-15, 25-10, 25-18) on Thursday night at the Galen Center.
Oregon State (5-20, 3-12 Pac-12) was outhit by the second-ranked Women of Troy (27-1, 15-1 Pac-12), .354-.133. USC held an 8-0 advantage in service aces, and outdug the Beavers, 49-35. Blocks were even at four total apiece.
“Compared to the last match where we won the serving battle, they just served and passed better than us,” Oregon State head coach Taras Liskevych said. “Those were both areas we were very deficient in tonight. They really sided out well. When you side out at 86 percent, you'll beat anybody. We could not stop them at the net.”
Redshirt junior outside hitter Katelyn Driscoll had six kills, while sophomore outside hitter Mary-Kate Marshall had five and junior outside hitter Lila Toner added four on .273 hitting. Each of freshman libero Kayla Ellis and redshirt freshman setter McKenna Hollingsworth had eight digs. Off the bench, junior outside hitter Emilie Wilmes had a kill on three swings with a pair of blocks.
“Overall it was a subpar hitting performance by most of our hitters tonight,” Liskevych said. “One bright spot was the play of Emilie Wilmes, who did well after not playing for a while with an injury.”
Behind three early Oregon State hitting errors, USC opened the match with five unanswered points. The Beavers stopped the run on a Toner kill, but the Trojans extended their lead to 8-1 behind a pair of service aces from Samantha Bricio, who leads the nation in aces and broke the program's career kills record on Thursday night. The Beavers took three of the next four points to cut the deficit to five at 9-4, but the Women of Troy answered with a four-point run to take a nine-point advantage at 13-4. The Beavers drew within seven at 19-12, but USC closed with five of the next seven points to serve for set point, before taking the opening frame, 25-15.
From a 3-2 USC advantage to open the second set, the Trojans went on a three-point run to take a four-point edge at 6-2. The Women of Troy held that advantage up to a 10-6 score, where the Beavers were aced and committed a pair of attack errors and a ball handling error en route to a 16-6 USC advantage. USC held control of the set from that point, taking a 2-0 lead in the match with a 25-10 win in the second set.
Following quick starts to the first and second sets for USC, the third set opened with back-and-forth play up to a 10-9 score, at which point the Trojans used a four-point run to take a 14-9 advantage. USC maintained a four-point lead up to a 15-11 edge, then took four of the next six to extend the lead to six at 19-13. Kills from Marshall and Driscoll helped close the gap to four at 22-18, but USC closed with the final three points to take the match with a 25-18 third set win.
“They've only lost one match all year; there's a reason they're that good,” Liskevych said. “We've got to play above our expectations to beat a team like that. We just need to regroup and be ready to play UCLA.”
The Oregon State volleyball team bookends its Los Angeles roadtrip with a match at No. 9 UCLA on Sunday. Sunday's match at the John Wooden Center is set to begin at 11 a.m. PT, and will be televised live on the Pac-12 Networks.
For more information on the Oregon State volleyball team, follow the club's official Twitter account at Twitter.com/BeavsVolleyball, by Facebook at Facebook.com/OregonStateVolleyball or on Instagram at Instagram.com/OregonStateVolleyball.
