Dons Fall to No. 12 San Diego, 3-0

Thursday, October 10

San Diego

7 p.m.

University of San Francisco

7-9, 3-3WCC

San Diego

12-3, 4-2WCC

Team	1	2	3	Final F
San Francisco Dons	16	12	22	0
San Diego	25	25	25	3

Senior Rebecca Kopilovitch moved to fourth on the career digs list on Thursday

10/10/2013 9:26:00 PM | Women's Volleyball

Box Score

SAN DIEGO, Calif. – The No. 12 San Diego Toreros proved to be too much for the San Francisco volleyball team to handle Thursday night at the Jenny Craig Pavilion.

With stout play true to their national ranking in the first two sets, the Toreros surged to a 2-0 lead with set scores of 25-16, 25-12. But the Dons fought hard to try to lengthen the match in the third, rallying from an early 10-3 deficit to cut the lead to three after a Valentina Zaloznik kill make the score 16-13 in favor of San Diego just past the midway mark.

USF fell behind by six after straight kills by Katie Hoekman, but back-to-back aces from Zaloznik again tightened the set with the score at 19-16. A Malina Terrell kill followed by an attack error by San Diego's Sandra Lozic forced a Toreros timeout with the Dons just one point behind in the set and the score at 21-20. However, San Diego iced the game as Alaysia Brown's hit found the floor to finish the third by a score of 25-22 and send USF away without the opportunity to extend the match to a fourth set.

With the loss, the Dons move to 7-9 (3-3 WCC) on the season, while San Diego improves to 12-3 (4-2 WCC). San Diego's only setback on the season came at the hands of current No. 3 in the nation, Texas, BYU and Saint Mary's.

The Dons were led by Zaloznik's nine-kill effort, along with 13 assists from freshman Kiara McKibben. Rebecca Kopilovitch finished with a match-high 11 digs for USF and in the process reached another milestone mark in her three-year career for the Green and Gold.

The senior libero from Israel has compiled 1,193 digs for the Dons which registers as the fourth-best career performance in the all-time USF record books. During Thursday's match, Kopilovitch passed USF Hall of Fame player Brittanie Budinger and now stands 54 digs away from leaping into the third spot.

One of the toughest road trips of the season continues for the Dons as the team travels to No. 24 BYU to face the Cougars on Saturday at 12 p.m. (PT).