Pac-10 Women's Volleyball: Oregon State Defeats Arizona

Sophomore middle blockers Bree Knitter and Lexie Rathgeber tallied eight and a career-tying nine blocks, respectively.

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CORVALLIS, Ore. - Three Oregon State players had career-high nights and three players reached double-digits for kills as the team defeated Arizona 3-2 (30-25, 26-30, 30-27, 25-30, 15-13) Friday evening.

Behind 18.5 total blocks and 13 service aces, the Beavers improve to 10-13, 3-8 Pac-10, while Arizona drops to 12-11, 2-9 Pac-10.

“We had 13 aces and 13 misses; that’s great serving,” Oregon State head coach Taras Liskevych said. “Yesterday’s match was really anguishing. We talked after we had that first and third game and we let it go. It’s always big to win Pac 10 and these kinds of games.”

Sophomore Camilla Ah-Hoy had another notable night setting a new career-high with 54 assists, while sophomore Rachel Rourke had a team-high 21 kills adding six blocks and a career-high tying five service aces. Senior Kristin Murray added 10 kills and nine digs.

Sophomore middle blockers Bree Knitter and Lexie Rathgeber tallied eight and a career-tying nine blocks, respectively, with Knitter finding the floor a career-high 10 times.

Freshman Jill Sawatzky had a career-high night, posting her first double-double with 15 kills and a career-doubling 19 digs.

The Beavers and the Wildcats exchanged five lead changes and shared 13 ties in game one with the gap never being open by more than three until the final points.

The middle blockers stepped up with seven of the team’s 12 kills when the usual power hitters couldn’t find the floor, led by Rathgeber’s four kills and three block assists.

Rourke put the game away with her second service ace off of the game charged to Arizona’s Randy Goodenough after the Beavers reached game point first on a rotation error by the Wildcats.

Momentum carried into game two for Oregon State with Sawatzky finding the floor for the first two points.

The Wildcats struggled to put together more than a side out point together in the early stages of the game before a series of short serves by Paige Weber cut the seven point lead to three.

Things tied up for the first time at 18-18 before seven more consecutive times following with the Beavers unable to capitalize on three Arizona serving errors. A pair of errors by Oregon State secured that the match would go into at least four.

After being held to only three kills in the first two games, Rourke found her swing, tallying eight coming out of the break.

Knitter picked her sixth and seventh blocks off a pair of overpasses by the Wildcats before earning a career-high tying kill No. 9 off another overpass to put the Beavers up by four.

With Rourke behind the line to serve for game point, the team nearly took a two-game lead before Goodenough went down with an injury halting play.

Oregon State let Arizona back into the game within two before an attack error by Jacy Norton secured the one-game advantage for the Beavers.

In a match-deciding game four, the Beavers capitalized on hitting errors by the Wildcats taking the first three rallies on a couple attack errors, rotation error and blocks by Ah-Hoy and Knitter and causing Arizona to burn its first timeout.

The Wildcats took their second break after only rallying to come up with one point behind a Tiffany Owens kill with the gap widening to 7-1 in favor of the Beavers.

The momentum shifted in favor of Arizona going on a 9-1 run to reach 20 first behind big plays on both sides of the ball by Owens, who racked up seven kills.

In the pivotal game five, Rourke came up big again leading the Beavers with back-to-back service aces with one coming right before switching sides and one immediately after.

After a yellow card was issued to Norton after a blocking error was called, a point was awarded to Oregon State to put the team up 12-11 when yellow turned into a red card.

Rourke’s 21st kill and an illegal back row attack by setter Paige Weber secured Oregon State’s third Pac-10 win of the season.

Arizona’s Owens hit a match-high 25 kills with Goodenough adding 15, while Dominique Lamb had 13 blocks. Libero Alanna Resch had a match-high 28 digs.

Oregon State heads back to California to the Bay Area next week. The team will face No. 3 Stanford on Thursday evening beginning at 7:00 p.m.

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