CORVALLIS — The 1,558 fans who turned out to see the Oregon Ducks and Oregon State Beavers Wednesday night were treated to one heck of a match.
And although the Oregon women (8-8 overall, 0-7 Pacific-10 Conference) lost to the Beavers (11-4, 5-2) in four games (30-25, 23-30, 30-18, 30-21) at Gill Coliseum, it was the best they had played all season.
After dropping the first game convincingly to Oregon State, the Ducks showed the strength and resiliency needed to compete in the Pac-10.
Twice in the second game the Ducks had runs of five points or more. They took a commanding 5-0 lead on the strength of three outstanding plays by juniors Lindsay Closs and Stephanie Martin. Martin, who had a career high 15 kills that led Oregon, showed the ability that helped make her the junior college player of the year last season.
After the Beavers climbed back into striking distance late in the game, head coach Carl Ferreira’s squad again showed a poise unseen before the match. A second run of five points, this time led by juniors Sydney Chute and Amanda Porter, helped the Ducks jump out to a strong lead against the Beavers, and this time were able to hold Oregon State off for good.
“We really won the scoring and passing game,” Ferreira said. “We minimized our unforced errors and got a lot of kills. That enabled us to have the runs that we did.”
But that would be the only game the Ducks won on the night.
After starting the third game off with a block by senior Monique Tobbagi, Oregon fell behind and was never able to come back. The stellar play of senior Gina Schmidt and sophomore Laura Collins helped bury the Ducks in the third game.
Collins led the match with 48 assists and Schmidt tied with Martin for the match lead in kills with 15.
The story would be the same for the Oregon women in the fourth and deciding match. The Ducks again led off the game with a 1-0 start, but were not able to hold on long. After coming within one point at 17-16, the Ducks fell behind and saw Oregon State win six of the last 10 points to win by nine.
“We’ve been getting better each week,” Ferreira said. “It’s definitely frustrating, but there are two ways to look at it — either be disappointed or understand what allowed us to have success (in the second game) and focus on that.”
For the third match in a row, Martin led the Ducks in kills, this time with 15. Also a strong point for Oregon was the play of Closs. Closs pitched in 11 kills, including two of the Ducks’ last three in game two, and pitched in with 4 block assists.
“It’s disappointing and frustrating, but we’re making progress and we’re getting to where we need to be,” Closs said. “It’s nice to see we’re getting better and not going the other way.”