Hannah Pukis had the magic touch again.

Since she joined the team last season after transferring from Washington State, she has led the team to scoring runs or giving them automatic points from behind the line with her service aces, making her one of the most consistent servers on the team. 

Shortly behind Mimi Colyer for the team lead, she has had 18 service aces so far and one of them was used to give Oregon a 1-0 lead after the opening set, which had four aces total. 

No. 5 Oregon’s (15-2, 5-1 Pac-12) scrappiness is what led to the four-set road win against Utah (8-7, 3-2 Pac-12). Scrappy serves, scrappy rallies and scrappy hits. To start the game, a rally that had both teams spreading across the floor in different directions gave the Ducks a 4-1 lead. These patterns stayed consistent throughout the matches, but that’s Oregon’s bread and butter.

Pukis wasn’t the only one with the magic touch on Sunday. Gabby Gonazlaes had two of the four service aces by 14-8, causing the Utes to call a timeout early on. 

After the teams returned to the floor, Oregon went on a roll. As the first set came to an end, the Ducks had a 22-15 lead over Utah, matching the largest lead of the set. Before match point, the Utes were only able to add one more point to the board. 
The second set was a different story. 

A 4-0 run by the home team gave Utah a 13-8 lead and forced the Ducks to call a timeout. Oregon was able to pull within four, but the Utes scored two in a row, giving the Ducks a taste of their own medicine. 
The Ducks saved two match points, but it wasn’t enough as the game evened out at 1-1. 

Oregon’s serves were secret weapons on Sunday. Kate Thibault, a freshman from Watertown, Minnesota, had her 10th ace of the season to give the Ducks’ their 10th point of the third match. 

The Ducks and the Utes continued to scramble for points in the third set, but Colyer was able to push Oregon’s lead to seven with a kill at 20-13. In the third set alone, the team collectively hit .382 and paired it with 17 digs to go back in front at 2-1.

That same energy and scrappiness continued into the final set when Oregon went on an early 5-1 run to force Utah to call a timeout in an attempt to break the Ducks’ rhythm. 

It didn’t work. In fact, the Ducks’ started to become more aggressive and creative in their play. Kara McGhee, a 6 ‘5 right-handed middle blocker, used her left hand to dump the ball at Utah’s center line and then, shortly after, had her seventh kill of the afternoon to make Oregon the first to 20 in the set.

Gonzales’ 11th kill closed out the match for Oregon’s 15th win of the season. After being tied after the first couple frames, the Ducks hit .386 over the last two sets and held the Utes to a .074 hitting percentage at the same time. After their weekend in the mountains, the Ducks finished 2-0. 

Now, the Ducks will fly back home for a four-game homestand that starts off against Arizona on October 13. First serve is scheduled for 7 pm and will be available to watch on Pac-12 Network.