Box Score
SAN FRANCISCO – The San Francisco women's volleyball team welcomed new league foe, Pacific, to the West Coast Conference with a five-set tussle at War Memorial Gym Saturday afternoon.
The Dons took the first two sets 26-24, 25-21 to hold the 2-0 lead heading to halftime. But the Tigers roared back to take the next two frames 19-25, 18-25 to force a decisive fifth set. The Dons powered through the fifth to win 15-8 and earn their second victory of the week. USF improved its conference record to 5-4 on the season, one of four teams in the league above the .500 mark. Overall, the Dons move to 9-10 on the season, while Pacific stands at 11-9 (4-5 WCC) after Saturday's match.
"It's a great win. To finish the weekend with two wins in conference is a great feeling," head coach
Gilad Doron said. It's always great to finish strong and it helps that one of your leaders on the team, Valentina [Zaloznik], had a tremendous game. She wasn't going to let this one go away. And Malina [Terrell] also was very solid offensively. Right now, we've got to keep fighting. It's great to see that we get some momentum here and start moving in the right direction."
Zaloznik led the Dons with 19 kills on an eye-popping .516 attack percentage, to go along with eight total blocks in the contest. Terrell added 17 kills on .341 hitting in USF's victory.
The final frame of the day started with two points from Pacific before the Dons scored the next six to build a lead with
Anja Segota at the serve. The run was punctuated by two momentum-building blocks from Zaloznik and
Katarina Pilepic that got the home crowd into the action.
The Tigers rallied to even the frame at 7-7, but could never regain the advantage in the set. USF rolled off the next three points to force Pacific head coach Greg Gibbons to take a timeout. Another timely combo block from the Dons, this time from
Inbar Vinarsky and Terrell, immediately followed the break in the action as USF ended the match on an 8-1 run. Vinarsky and Segota's block of Megan Birch gave the Dons the 15-8 set victory and the 3-2 match win. Despite being out-hit .221 to .199 on the day, the Dons held the Pacific offense to -.158 hitting in the final frame to make the difference in the match.
"It really comes down to making plays," Doron said. "We were up 2-0 and then we led 6-1 in the third and maybe the team thought ok they will go away, but Pacific is too good to just quit. They're well coached and they fought back, and we had to climb back from the hole we dug ourselves. We didn't look very well in the fourth, but we turned around. I'm really proud of the team effort and everyone who stepped in and made contributions and different times."
Along with team-leading numbers from Zaloznik and Terrell, the upperclassmen on the team were seen throughout the stat sheet. Senior
Mackenzie Murtagh finished with a 32 assists and fellow senior
Rebecca Kopilovitch posted a match-high 22 digs for the Dons.
USF looks to continue its three match home winning streak Friday as it welcomes Santa Clara, the third Bay Area rival of the home stand, to War Memorial Gym Friday at 6:30 p.m.
"It's a long-standing rivalry and it's going to be tough. I think they're going to come in here ready," associate head coach
Ken Ko said of the Friday match. "With these rivalry matches, you never know what's going to happen. We're going to need to bring our best."
