Sept. 18, 2009

Box Score

Stockton, Calif. - Off to their best start since 2001, the Pacific women's volleyball team moved to 9-1 in 2009 with a dominating 3-0 sweep of Nevada on Friday, September 18, at the 2009 Hilton Stockton Invitational. The Tigers moved to 2-0 at the tournament while the Wolf Pack fell to 0-2 on the weekend and 3-8 on the year.

Set scores for the match were: 25-17, 25-16, 25-15.

Looking to set up a championship match with Loyola Marymount who won earlier in the evening, the Tigers wasted little time establishing their dominance over the visiting Wolf Pack on the night, jumping out to a quick 9-3 lead before Nevada knew what hit it.  The early lead would grow into an insurmountable deficit for Nevada behind the serve of sophomore Rebekah Torres (Wahiawa, Hawaii) as she propelled the Tigers on a 6-0 run midway through the opening set and to a 23-12 advantage.  With set one comfortably in hand, the Tigers went to their reserves, sending in freshman Gabby Cowden (Danville, Calif.) into the middle from which she posted just her second career block by combining with senior Masha Vaysburg (Livermore, Calif.) to deny a Wolf Pack attack and close out set one for the Tigers.

Pacific continued with its freshmen work in set two as freshman Andrea Terpstra (Ripon, Calif.) started the set for the Tigers in place of Vaysburg.  The freshman picked up immediately where Cowden left off, picking up her first kill in the Spanos Center on her first swing in set two to give the Tigers the 1-0 lead.  Additionally, Terpstra made her presence felt on the defensive side of the net, posting three blocks in the set, all of which came in the set's final points when Pacific used a 10-2 run to close out the victory and put the Wolf Pack in a two sets to none hole in the match.  She combined with senior Mallori Gibson (Bakersfield, Calif.) on a pair of blocks on the final two plays of the set, closing out the set just as Cowden had done in the first.

Up 2-0, it was Torres who took control for the Tigers as she put down a set-high nine kills on 11 swings with only one error.  The sophomore outside pushed Pacific out to an 8-4 lead in the first few minutes of the third and final set tallying three of the Tigers' five kills in the run.  After the Wolf Pack closed to within two points at 12-10, the Tigers used a 9-2 run to distance themselves from their competition by combining solid hitting from the outsides with errors from the Nevada attack to put the set away. 

For the match, Torres led all attackers with 14 kills on 22 swings, posting a .455 hitting percentage after committing just four errors.  Junior Svenja Engelhardt (Sinsheim, Germany) had a quietly effective performance for the Tigers as she registered 10 kills and seven digs to go along with three service aces and no errors from the service line.  Gibson narrowly missed out on double-digit kills by tallying nine kills and three errors on 15 swings.  As a team, Pacific outdid its performance from the previous night to post a season-best .400 hitting percentage (40 kills, 10 errors, 75 attacks) in the contest.  Pacific's four setters all saw time on the court throughout the night with senior Olivia Riley (Agua Dulce, Calif.) tallying 28 assists while the freshmen, Pihanakealoha Kea (Honolulu, Hawaii), Megan MacLeod (Fremont, Calif.) and Arielle Goldberg (Damascus, Md.) combined for another eight.

For the Wolf Pack, Kylie Harrington posted a team-best 10 kills on 32 swings while Lindsay Baldwin tallied nine.  As a team, Nevada hit just .082 (31 kills, 23 errors, 97 attacks) as Pacific's blockers posted 10.0 blocks on the night.

The 2009 Hilton Stockton Invitational will close out on Saturday, September 19 with a pair of contests.  Nevada and Cal State Bakersfield will square off in the third place match at 5:00 pm before Pacific takes on Loyola Marymount in the championship match at 7:00 pm.