SAN FRANCISCO – It took five sets and a gutsy rally in the final frame before the San Francisco volleyball team dispatched Portland 3-2 Saturday afternoon at War Memorial Gym.
In victory, the Dons pick up their 10th win of the season, improving to 10-8 (3-3 West Coast Conference) while holding off Portland's bid for its first WCC victory. The Pilots now stand at 5-12 (0-6 WCC).
"I'm exhausted, and I can only imagine how the team feels," associate head coach
Ken Ko said after the match. "Two five-setters in the weekend; it was great to get the win, and it was a tough one today. Portland played really well and that kind of symbolizes our conference. They came in, they played hard and they were hungry to get a win. Everyone is hungry to get a win and you've got to step up your game at this point in the season in this tough league."
The Dons were paced by a career- and match-high 26 kills from
Katarina Pilepic, a sophomore from Novi Vinodolski, Croatia. She registered at least five kills in each of the day's sets. In the decisive fifth frame, Pilepic opened the scoring with a powerful kill to get the Dons on the board. Fitting to the day, she also registered the final point of the day as USF finished with a 5-1 run to close out the set and the match.
"Kat's been playing really well and long as she stays positive and takes what the opponents give her, she's pretty hard to stop," head coach
Gilad Doron said. "We needed her to come through and she came really big in the fifth set with five kills and really propelled us with that first kill and that was the first time we saw her swinging really hard."
"Kat just showed a completely different dimension to her game today and that was one of the most impressive things," added Ko. "She's always been a very powerful hitter, but she really got a good number of her kills tonight using really good court awareness and picking her spots."
USF's setter
Kiara McKibben also registered a career-high outing, finishing with 58 assists as the Dons switched to a 5-1 offense on the floor.
"When you're used to playing a 6-2 and can kind of take some breaks it can be easy to kind of maybe mentally take some points off, but Kiara did a great job," Ko noted. "Defensively, as well – 18 digs for us. That's a fabulous job to not only run an offense well, but to help us in transition also."
The double-double for the sophomore from Colorado Springs, Colo., was her seventh of the season. McKibben was one of five Dons to record at least 10 digs in the match, as freshman libero
Kim Gutierrez went for a career-high 32 digs on the day. Senior
Valentina Zaloznik finished with 14 kills, 12 digs and two aces in the victory.
Despite hitting just .160 in the match, the Dons bested the Pilots in hitting percentage .160 to .135, held a 66 to 49 edge in assists and outdug Portland 109 to 81. Now USF hits the road for four straight matches, and Doron knows that improvements are needed in order to keep tallying wins in the WCC.
"At the end of the day, we pulled through and that was the most important thing, to get a win here," he said. "But we've got to start thinking how we can come in a little more focused to play Dons volleyball and not wait for the opponent to give it to us. Maybe today was a lesson. It's a challenge to win on the road, and everything you do at home you have to do better on the road. Hopefully, we learned from today that we've got to come prepared. This is a true test of our togetherness, of our team effort and it's the middle of the season. You either rise up to the occasion or you're left behind. And I hope our team is ready to rise up."
USF's road stretch starts in Southern California where the Dons will meet up with No. 25 Loyola Marymount. Thursday's first serve in Los Angeles is slated for 7 p.m.
