The opening weekend of Pacific-10 Conference volleyball didn’t quite go as planned for the No. 11 Oregon Ducks (11-3 overall, 0-2 Pac-10), who fell to No. 8 California (12-1, 2-0) on Friday, then to No. 6 Stanford (11-2, 2-0) on Saturday.
“It didn’t turn out the way we had hoped, but we know what we need to work on,” junior Neticia Enesi said. “Some of the things are that we need to dig more balls, block more, and be more aggressive on offense.”
That’s certainly the case, after the Cal Bears stymied the Ducks, beating them in straight sets: 20-25, 15-25, and 15-25. Oregon was tied early with Cal in the first set 3-3 before the Bears scored seven consecutive points to take a 10-3 lead. Oregon rallied back to within two at 14-12 behind three service aces from sophomore Heather Meyers, but Cal again stopped the rally with a 5-1 run to pull ahead 19-13.
The second set was much of the same. Enesi kept the team close with three straight points on two kills and a block, but after being down two at 7-5, Oregon saw the NCAA Final Four qualifier run off with the set with a 13-8 streak to end the match.

Trying to avoid a sweep, the Ducks came out in the third set and hung tough with the Bears. No team had more than a two-point lead through the first 11 points, and they were tied at 11-11. However, Cal again showed its strength, putting up six unanswered points to go ahead 17-11, and cruise to the three-set victory.
The loss to the Bears ended Oregon’s nine-match winning streak, which dated back to Aug. 30 against Illinois. It also ended a six-match streak in which the Ducks swept every set.
Senior Katie Swoboda said the increased tempo of play in conference caught them off guard.
“We didn’t come out as ready as we should have been,” she said. “And the Pac-10 pace is played so much faster, we didn’t adapt as quickly as we needed to.”
The next day Oregon came out with a lot Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
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re intensity against the Cardinal after head coach Jim Moore tried to give the team a little boost, Enesi said, but they still ended up losing to the NCAA runner-ups, 21-25, 22-25, and 20-25.
“Coach challenged us against Stanford, and tried to fire us up,” Enesi said. “We knew we needed to play better and wanted to prove it to ourselves, too.”
The first set was closely contested. Oregon led early at 4-0, with kills from Enesi and senior All-American Gorana Maricic. After Stanford tied the score at four, the teams battled back and forth until Stanford went up 23-19, and eventually won it 25-21.
The Ducks hung around in the second set as well. Through 11-11, there were six ties, and even after Stanford had a 5-1 run, Oregon came back to within one point at 18-17 behind a kill by senior Kristen Forristall. But again the Ducks just couldn’t get over the hump, and Stanford held them off down the stretch to win 25-22.
In the finale, the Ducks were only separated from the Cardinal by three points for most of the set. They rallied from a 15-12 hole to tie the set at 17-17, then again at 18-18. But a killer 7-2 run from Stanford to end the set and the match ruined all hopes of the Ducks winning a single set.
Alix Klineman, who led Stanford with 15 kills, was the star for the Cardinal, but the Ducks can hang their hat on the fact that they held Foluke Akinradewo – the 2007 Pac-10 Player of the Year and AVCA National Player of the Year – to 9.5 points in the three sets.
“We came out better the second night versus Stanford. They’re a great team, and that should motivate us to still better defense and more consistently overall,” Swoboda said. “Coach said we needed to outwork other teams, and be more disciplined.”
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