Feb. 25, 2011

Box Score

Stockton, Calif.

The No.15 Pacific Tiger's offense struggled mightily as they dropped a 3-1 decision to the No.3 UCSB Gauchos at the Alex G Spanos Center. Set Scores for the contest were: 25-17, 20-25, 25-18, 25-19. With the win UCSB improved to (10-6, 7-5 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) while Pacific fell to (6-10, 2-8 in conference play).

Pacific had an off night offensively, with only redshirt junior Chaz Hindsley (Northfield, Ill.) hitting better than .160 and junior Florian Gornik (Schwechat, Austria) the lone Tiger with double digits in the kill column. As a team Pacific hit a .133 clip with 38 kills and 24 errors on 105 total swings compared to UCSB's .243 with 47 kills, and 22 errors on 103 swings.

In set one Pacific struggled from the get go, quickly falling behind 5-0. Redshirt freshman Adam Troy (Loomis, Calif.) sparked the Tiger offensive with a kill followed by a Hindsley service ace to get Pacific into the match trailing 5-2. The Tigers closed the gap to two with another Troy kill and a UCSB attack error to trail 6-4. Pacific then relinquished three straight points to fall behind 9-4 and a need for a Pacific timeout. Out of the break redshirt sophomore Taylor Hughes slaughtered a ball down the line, and Gornik contributed another kill but the set began to slip away as multiple attack and service errors plagued the Tigers. Pacific trailing 21-13 got another offensive contribution from Hindsley but followed that with another service error and an additional attack error. UCSB served up a service ace to put the Gauchos in a set point position, Tigers trailing 24-14. Pacific then was able to sideout on a Gaucho service error but ultimately would loose on a service error of their own. The first set of the night was the Tigers most dismal frame offensively hitting -.038 clip with only seven kills and eight errors on 26 swings. Set score 25-16.

The highlight of Pacific's night came in set two where the Tigers were most effective getting out to a 2-0 lead on back-to-back service aces from Adam Troy. UCSB was able to tie the frame up at 12 and kept pace with the Tigers until the Tigers led 21-20. Pacific went on to claim the set 25-20. In the set Pacific posted 13 of their kills while hitting a .345 clip and posting 3.5 team blocks.

Set three began to slip away from the Tigers as they trailed 11-7 and coach Joe Wortmann was forced to call a timeout. Pacific trailed by as many as nine at one point following a service ace by UCSB's Evan Licht to give the Gauchos a 20-11 advantage. The Tigers tried to claw their way back into the set but were never able to close the gap ultimately dropping the frame to UCSB 25-18.

The fourth and final frame of the night didn't look much different for the Tigers as they hit an exiguous .071 and recorded 11 kills with nine errors on 28 swings. Pacific fell in the final set 25-19 to give UCSB the match win.

Pacific looks to get back on track when they retake the court Saturday Feb. 26, when they host No.8 UCLA in the Alex G. Spanos Center in a match scheduled for 7:30pm.