SAN FRANCISCO – The San Francisco volleyball team made quick work of the visiting Portland Pilots easing to the 25-20, 25-16, 25-22 victory at War Memorial Gym on Saturday afternoon.

After recording its ninth sweep of the season, the Dons now stand at 15-3 (2-3 WCC) on the year and the squad is enjoying its best start to the season 2006. Meanwhile, Portland moves to 11-5 (1-3 WCC) after suffering just its second straight-set defeat on the year. For the Dons, the win caps a three-match week in which the team totaled 13 sets in five days.

"It's been an extremely difficult week with two five-gamers. Gonzaga was a very, very long match, a physical match, and then to come here against a Portland team who is much better than in years past and have the legs and the energy to run the offense the way we did was good to see," said head coach Gilad Doron. "We weren't clean throughout the match but we were pretty disciplined, and I'm proud of the girls playing heads up and taking what they got and executing. I credit the team and the athletic performance staff for their recovery. This is the kind of shape that we need to be in to play."

The Dons hit .322 in the match, paced by a pair of double-digit kill performances. Seeing doubles on the stat sheet, Katarina Pilepic and Oluoma Okaro both tallied 11 kills, and Okaro hit a team-high .409 for the Dons. Directing the offense, Kiara McKibben and Jurja Vlasic each notched 18 assists, and McKibben and Kim Gutierrez both recorded 14 digs on the day.

The Pilots got on the board first on the day after a service error, and Portland led 3-2 after Sarah Savoca's kill. But the Dons would roll off the next five unanswered with Vlasic at the serve to take the lead. USF would not trail in the frame again, extending the advantage to six points after a misfire off the hand of Hannah Troutman put the score at 18-12.

The Dons would go on to take the first set 25-20, and USF kept the momentum going in the second, jumping out to the 10-6 lead after back-to-back kills from Madison Murtagh. USF closed the frame on a 7-1 run with Murtagh manning the service line. The final two points of the set came off the defensive play at the net. First Pilepic and Murtagh combined for the block of Emily Liger's attempt, and Gaffney and Okaro denied the ball from Savoca to send the Dons to halftime after the 25-16 second set victory.

After the break, the Pilots leapt out to the 4-1 lead before the Dons battled back to regain the lead for good off the kill from senior Sara Staengle to put the score at 9-7. The Dons extended the advantage to five points after Pilepic's kill made it 20-15. Portland would challenge late in the frame after McKibben touched the net to make the score 23-22 in favor of the Dons. Two straight unforced errors for the Pilots allowed the Dons to clinch the sweep and move its home record to 7-2 on the year.

"I thought we were all disciplined today," said Doron. "We were all together defensively today and we serve and pass really well which allows us to follow our game plan on offense."

With the long week behind them, the Dons look forward to facing off against rival Santa Clara in its lone match of the upcoming week.

"It's Rivalry Week, and it's always going to be a great match," said Doron. "Santa Clara is a very good team this year, picked to finish second in the league. They beat BYU after we played BYU here, so we know it's going to be a handful with them. It's Friday night, it's Dig Pink, hopefully people will come to see how great of a product we have here with the style of play this year and we can get a big crowd and enjoy a fun WCC match."

The Dons face off against the Broncos on Friday at 7 p.m. The first 200 fans at the match will receive free pink t-shirts as part of the Dons' Dig Pink match to support breast cancer awareness.