The Oregon volleyball team dropped its 18th consecutive match Thursday, falling to No. 7 Stanford, 3-0 (30-10, 30-20, 30-20) in front of 1,035 fans at Maples Pavilion.
Oregon’s overall record is now 3-23, including a 0-17 ledger in Pacific-10 Conference matches. The Ducks were simply overmatched by Stanford, which out-hit Oregon percentage-wise, .449 to .054.
Stanford (20-6 overall, 13-4 Pac-10) was led by junior outside hitter Ogonna Nnamani, who finished with a match-high 14 kills, while hitting at an impressive .560 clip.
Freshman outside hitter Kristin Richards added nine kills and 11 digs, while junior outside hitter Jennifer Hucke had eight kills.
Oregon managed to tie game one at two before being overwhelmed by Stanford. The Ducks didn’t reach double digits in game one until a kill by junior outside hitter Lauren Westendorf made the score 25-10 in favor of Stanford. Oregon finished with a game one hitting percentage of negative .172, including six kills and 11 attack errors.
The Ducks improved slightly in games two and three, but failed to achieve an attack percentage of .200 in either game. Oregon pulled to within five in game two when a Westendorf kill made the score 14-9, but Stanford scored six consecutive points to take a commanding 20-9 lead.
Oregon jumped out to a 6-4 lead in game three after a service error by Hucke. The lead was short-lived, however, as the Cardinal scored six of the next seven points to take a 10-7 lead that it did not relinquish.
“I thought we started off very slow in game one,” Oregon head coach Carl Ferreira said. “But in the second half of the match — in games two and three — I thought we played with maximum effort and got into a bit of a rhythm.”
Westendorf led Oregon with eight kills and nine digs and freshman setter Heather Madison dished out a match-high 25 assists.
Oregon’s most notable bright spot was freshman outside hitter Erin Little, who finished with seven kills.