Box Score
SAN FRANCISCO – In a match punctuated by long rallies, fierce kills and sky-high leaps, the San Francisco volleyball team downed oldest competitor Saint Mary's 3-1 Thursday night at War Memorial Gym.
The Dons showed a well-rounded effort throughout the entire roster, with three USF players reaching double-digit kills, four with 10-plus digs and a pair of setters going over the 20-assist mark in USF's victory.
"I thought we distributed the ball fairly evenly, and our players were really aggressive," head coach
Gilad Doron said after the win. "I thought we stayed strong, and we weathered the storm when Saint Mary's served really tough. We were able to stay on course and players got good smart swings, and made some blocks and some digs, and we played inspired. That, I think, was the key."
Offensively, senior
Malina Terrell led the way with 15 kills on .433 hitting. She added two total blocks and an ace to finish with a team-high 17.5 points on the night. Freshman
Katarina Pilepic added 14 kills and a pair of blocks while junior
Valentina Zaloznik posted 11 kills in the win. Feeding the ball to the hitters was the duo of
Mackenzie Murtagh and
Kiara McKibben. Murtagh helped on 23 balls while McKibben added 20 assists, including six in the first set to get the Dons going.
USF's start to the night was slow, with Saint Mary's taking the first three points of the match. But the Dons rallied back to tie it at 6's, 7's, 8's and 9's before the Gaels raced out to a five-point lead. At that point the Dons began a 10-1 run punctuated by back-to-back kills by
Ester de Vries to gain the advantage before earning a 25-21 victory in the first set.
The second belonged to the Gaels, as USF hit just 16.7 percent in the frame, compared to effective .367 from Saint Mary's. After heading into halftime tied at one set apiece, the Dons came out of the locker room on a mission to win. An ace by de Vries resulted in the first tie of the set at 6-6. The frame was knotted on four other occasions, with the last coming after Murtagh's backset to Pilepic evened the score at 10-10.
Later in the set, four-straight points by the Dons gave USF a 19-14 advantage. After a timeout by the Gaels, Saint Mary's rallied with four consecutive of their own – all from the hand of Madelyn Hutson - to pull within one. The set stayed close until its closure, with Saint Mary's forcing three set points before a service error by Kristina Graven finished the frame at 25-23 in favor of the Green and Gold.
The Dons breezed to a fourth set victory to ice the match in four and give USF a win to begin their longest home stretch of the season, a three-match swing with USF's fellow Bay Area competition.
Despite a career-high 16 kills to go along with six total blocks from Hutson of Saint Mary's, the Gaels could not keep up with USF's output and the Dons' defense, which held the Gaels to .208 hitting, 35 points below their season average.
USF improves to 8-10 on the season, and 4-4 in WCC play, while Saint Mary's drops just their second conference match of the year to move to 10-6 (6-2 WCC).
"Beating a top team at home, and playing pretty well, hopefully we want to do it more often," Doron said. "I'm just proud of the team tonight. With all the ups and downs that we've had, they don't give up and they look to each other and say we're going to go after it, and they did. It's absolutely a great feeling when you know you're getting stronger. The team needed to get a good win, and this is a great win for our program."
The Dons continue their homestand Saturday, hosting new conference member Pacific at 1 p.m.
