San Diego, Calif. - With a chance to give them some breathing room in the standings, the Tigers suffered a deflating loss at San Diego on Thursday, Nov. 6 as the Toreros took a 3-1 win at the Jenny Craig Pavilion. The loss snapped a five-match winning streak for the Tigers and dropped them to 19-6 on the year and 8-4 in WCC play while the Toreros improved to 16-9 and 9-4 in conference action. The Toreros victory bookended Pacific's most recent winning streak as they were the last team to beat the Tigers back on Oct. 10 at the Spanos Center. 

Set scores for the match were: 25-20, 25-14, 22-25, 25-19.

From the outset the Tigers struggled to get anything going against the Toreros as San Diego seemed to have the entire floor covered against Pacific's attack. Limited early with their options, the Tigers fell behind by as much as seven at 14-7 as they were held to negative hitting for much of the set. With the offense struggling the defense attempted to get Pacific back into the set with the block, only to run out of time and points to finish the comeback fully. The set loss was the first for the Tigers in 15 sets dating back to the third set against Gonzaga on Oct. 16.  

Despite the late rally in the opening set, the Tigers weren't able to parlay the run into sustainable momentum in the second set as the Toreros continued to frustrate Pacific's attack. Trailing by one at 8-7, the Tigers saw the Toreros run away with the second frame using a 5-0 run that broke open the contest. 

After suffering the big loss in the second frame, Pacific regrouped in the locker room and came out swinging. However, the early success that saw the Tigers lead by as much as five was short lived as the Toreros revived their block and used a 6-0 run to flip a 13-8 Pacific advantage into a 14-13 San Diego lead. Pacific would battle back to take a late 20-17 lead and overcome some controversial calls late to breathe new life into the match with the set win. Fittingly, after being called for a phantom net violation, sophomore Alicia Wilk made good from the service line as she posted back-to-back aces to finish the set.

Instead of getting the Tigers going, the run to end the third set reinvigorated the Toreros as they burst out of the gates with a 5-0 run and never looked back. With the lead, San Diego dug in and led by as much as seven multiple times before holding off Pacific's late set charge to capture the set and the match.

San Diego came up with one of their best defensive nights of the season against the Tigers as the Toreros produced 14.5 blocks and 85 digs. The defensive efforts held Pacific to just .126 hitting as no Tiger hit over .270 in the match. 

One of the few players for the Tigers to get anything going offensively on the night was junior Kat Schulz who posted 16 kills. She finished with her ninth double-double of the season as she added 10 digs defensively. In the middle, senior Gillian Howard produced 11 kills and eight blocks while five different Tigers posted double-digit digs led by freshman Katrin Gotterba's 15. 

The Toreros were paced by all-american Alaysia Brown who finished with 19 kills on .357 hitting while Canace Finley produced 10 kills and seven blocks. As a team, San Diego hit .233, the best hitting performance against the Tigers in WCC play to date. Defensively, Lauren Schad came up with eight blocks while Hunter Jennings produced 26 digs.  

The Tigers head to Provo, Utah on Saturday, Nov. 8, to take on the first place and No. 14th ranked BYU Cougars as they look to salvage a split on the weekend and keep their hope alive of a WCC title. The match from the Smith Fieldhouse is scheduled for 1:00 pm MST, 12:00 pm PST and can be seen live on BYUtv.