SAN FRANCISCO – Despite a close match throughout, the San Francisco volleyball team wasn't able to overtake the Pacific Tigers on Saturday afternoon, falling 25-20, 25-22, 25-21 on the home court of War Memorial Gym.

"I thought we just didn't have a spark," said head coach Gilad Doron. "From the leadership perspective from the presence of some of our key players on the court we didn't get what we were looking for."

The Dons opened each of the day's sets with the lead but USF saw its advantage slip away midway through the action. In the first frame, The Dons opened with the 7-3 lead after Courtney Sabahi and Oluoma Okaro teamed up for the block. The Dons stalled on seven points with Lexi Elman holding down the service line for the Tigers as the visitors inched out to the 9-7 advantage.

In the second set, USF opened in similar fashion, holding the 7-4 lead after Janie Feldsher's attack missed the mark for Pacific. With the score knotted at 10 apiece, Kimmy Whitson put in the service ace to give the Tigers the lead. The scoring went back and forth with ties at 11, 13, 14, and 15 points, but the USF offense stalled and left an open door for the Tigers to slip through. Pacific went on to take the set 25-22, keeping the Dons off the board heading into halftime.

USF yet again opened the third set on top, after Sara Staengle's kill off the pass from Jujra Vlasic made it 7-4. The Dons continued to hold the advantage after Okaro's point made it 12-10 in favor of the Dons. Pacific's Katrin Gotterba took over at the serve with the score at 14-12 and by the time she left the line the Tigers took 15-14 lead. The frame continued to be tightly contested, and Jessica Gaffney's kill tied the set at 18-all. Pacific used a 7-3 run to close out the set and the match with the victory.

"Consistency, playing until the end" that's some of the things that we're going to have to work on," said Doron. "You can't play three rallies and take a break. We had untimely, unexcusable missed serves today. Some of the players were just not on defensively and blocking and it's a shame. I thought we could have played better today and had better results."

With the win, Pacific moves to 17-5 on the season, and 5-5 in West Coast Conference play, while the Dons slip to 16-7 (3-7 WCC) and hit the road for a trio of matches.

USF was paced by 13 kills from Katarina Pilepic, and a 10-kill effort from Okaro. Kiara McKibben and Vlasic combined for 38 of the Dons' 39 assists and Kim Gutierrez finished with a match-high 13 digs on the day. The Dons were outhit .320 to .233 by the Tigers, and Pacific held the 8 to 2 advantage on the block in the three-set match.

"We have to try to stay focused, try to stay hungry and try to continue to get better," said Doron. "Hopefully we can rally the troops here and go on the road and get some wins."

First up, USF travels to Portland to take on the Pilots on Thursday at 7 p.m.