During the Ducks’ final day in the state of Washington, they arrived to a packed stadium and a team that couldn’t wait to step on the floor and compete. Their excitement showed on the court, and Oregon struggled to fight against it.
In the first set, Washington started out strong with a lot of aggressive attacks that the Ducks struggled to combat.
Mimi Colyer helped close the Huskies’ lead with powerful, consistent hits to the back corners, but overall as a team, Oregon struggled with the timing of its hits as most of them went into the net.
In the beginning of the set, most of the Ducks’ points came from Washington errors, but they started to find their groove later on. Oregon came up short 20-25 and the Huskies took set one.
The Ducks started the next set with the momentum that they gained during the end of the first set. Brooke Nuneviller found her timing with the ball, having fast and strong hits that Washington couldn’t recover from.
Oregon took its first lead of the game at 10-9, but it didn’t last long. A few points later, the Ducks challenged a touch call and lost. The pause in the game allowed the Huskies to recuperate, and they started to add points to the board quickly.
The Ducks started to show signs of collapsing as players were bumping into each other, not communicating with each other and struggling to control their passes. Washington took full advantage of Oregon’s mistakes and took the second set.
In the third set, the Ducks kept up with the Huskies. It was a constant back and forth battle, as each team kept the lead within one. Washington called a timeout later in the set in an attempt to slow down Oregon, but it didn’t work. The Ducks took set three 25-22.
Oregon kept its fire alive going into the fourth set, quickly taking a three-point lead. The Huskies continued to call timeouts since they were struggling to keep up with Nuneviller and Colyer, and it allowed them to close the gap. It wasn’t enough as the Ducks took set four.
In the final set of the night, Washington had five straight aces to start. The Ducks finally got on the board thanks to Nuneviller, who had back-to-back kills to cut the lead to three.
The energy that the Huskies had in the beginning came back in this final set as they took an 11-3 lead before the Ducks called a timeout. Nuneviller added one more point for Oregon before the timeout was called.
After the timeout, Oregon’s front row had a big block that gave the Ducks a little energy boost to close the gap to five. Colyer had one of her typical powerful hits that allowed the Ducks to inch closer to lead and the Huskies called a timeout. Colyer finished the night with 25 kills.
Despite the huge momentum gain, the Huskies walked away with the win.
Oregon will head to another part of the Pacific Northwest and will face USC on Oct. 14. The first serve will take place at 8:00 p.m and will be available to watch on Pac-12 Network.
