University of San Francisco Athletics

Box Score
SAN FRANCISCO – Powered by 17 kills from senior Malina Terrell and a 20-dig performance from fellow senior Rebecca Kopilovitch, the San Francisco volleyball team completed the season's longest home stand with three straight wins.

USF completed its Bay Area trifecta with a 3-1 victory over Santa Clara at War Memorial Gym Friday night. The Dons improve to 10-10 on the season and 6-4 in West Coast Conference action to solidify their fourth-place league standing.

"Santa Clara really came in to play today, so it feels great to get a win," head coach Gilad Doron said. "Last time we played at Santa Clara, we felt like we got a little bit on the lucky side, but today we took care of business and actually controlled it from the beginning. We hit extremely well, fought extremely well and we got contributions from different players at different times which was great to see."

Last week, USF took down fellow Bay Area teams Saint Mary's and Pacific, and are now riding a four-game home streak, its first since the 2009 season. The Dons completed the season sweep of the Broncos for just the second time in the 34-year series history.

"Beating Santa Clara, USF's rival, we never beat them when I was in school," returning alumna and USF Hall of Famer Brittanie Budinger said after the match. "All four years when I was here, I never beat them. So for me, it was cool to see them beat the rival and take the win tonight. You can tell they've been putting in a lot of time and hard work."

The Dons took the first set by a 25-22 tally, leading for the duration of the frame. Kopilovitch, a senior libero from Israel, notched her six of her match-high 20 digs in the set as she passed Melanie Kaiser to take possession of third on USF's all-time dig list.

"It's just fun to play defense and go for everything and frustrate the other teams," Kopilovitch said after her personal milestone match. "In order to dig we have to have a great block setup and that's something that we've been working on.  The girls have been doing a great job of blocking the other team and having the ball go to where it needs to go to make our job on defense much easier."

All told, the Dons recorded 13 total blocks in the match for the second-straight outing, and WCC Player of the Week, Valentina Zaloznik, accounted for one solo and eight assisted stuffs on the evening. Freshman Katarina Pilepic finished with six assisted blocks and Ester de Vries denied two balls on solo efforts in the match.

The second set started with the momentum fully on the side of the Broncos, as the visitors built a 10-4 lead off of straight kills from Sabrina Clayton. However, a rotation snafu caused a lengthy delay in the match and resulted in a score change and energy shift back to the Dons. After the adjusted score of 9-5 in favor of Santa Clara, USF went on a 5-1 run to tie the frame as Zaloznik and Pilepic combined for the block and forced a Bronco timeout with the 10-10 tie.

"They definitely had the momentum, but after the delay it gave us a chance to catch our breath and I think that in combination with them being a little bit confused and they lost momentum right there," associate head coach Ken Ko explained. "Before you knew it, it was 10-all and it gave us new life and we really pushed forward and got ahead."

The Dons went on to take the frame 25-19 heading into halftime, as the costume-clad fans took part in pre-Halloween festivities at the break. Santa Clara rallied to earn the third set victory 25-22 before USF pulled out all the stops in the fourth, never trailing in the final frame of the contest.

"We did a really great job on the offensive and defensive side of the ball and our team wanted it," Ko said of the match. "It was very clear in the manner in which we played."

Hitting .400 and finishing with five total blocks in the set, USF's stalwart defense held Santa Clara to .067 hitting in the fourth set. The Dons jumped out to an early 5-1 advantage in the set and a Terrell ace grew the lead to 13-7 midway through the frame. The Dons finished out the match by taking the fourth by a score of 25-17 to send Santa Clara packing in front of the best home crowd of the season thus far.  

"It feels great to dominate at home. In the past, it's been tough for us to get home wins against really good teams and I think we want to represent as best as we can," Terrell said after her second-straight 17-kill match. "This is our home court and we have to hold it down here. Every time we get a chance to play at home we're so much more fired up and it just makes us play so much better. And the crowd – when we have the support there that we really need, it just gives us even more power and even more fire."

Other statistical leaders in the match for the Dons include 31 assists by Mackenzie Murtagh along with 16 assists from Jurja Vlasic. Junior Anja Segota finished with 13 kills on .393 hitting on the night and was one dig away from notching a double-double. As a team, the Dons hit .298 on the evening, their second best offensive outing in conference action this season to drop the Broncos to 7-12 (2-8 WCC) on the year.

Budinger and other volleyball alumnae reunited on the Hilltop will continue their annual alumnae weekend festivities with a Saturday match that will pit former Dons versus the current lineup of student-athletes. Then, USF travels to the Pacific Northwest next weekend, kicking off the two-game road swing at Portland Thursday at 7 p.m.