After a hard-fought three sets to none loss to No. 3 Washington (11-0) that was filled with ups and downs and a healthy dose of controversy, women’s volleyball head coach Jim Moore’s initial explanation was simple.
“They’re better than us now. They’re significantly better than us,” said Moore. “I felt serving and passing were relatively equal in the beginning but they had eight aces in the first two sets. We didn’t pass well at all so you have to attribute that to their serving and we didn’t serve as tough as we needed to take them out of system.”
Oregon (10-1) began their Pacific-10 Conference opener with a solid first set, as senior outside hitter Sonja Newcombe recorded 4 kills and freshman outside hitter Katherine Fischer dialed up two service aces in a row. The Huskies on the other hand proved their worth with some key blocks and three service aces, leading to a 25-18 victory.
Having fallen in the first set, the Ducks came roaring out of the gate in the second set, scoring the first four points. The Huskies eventually regained their poise and tied the game 7-7. From there, the teams traded points until Newcombe unleashed a string of four consecutive kills and gave the Ducks a 21-18 lead. However, with a 24-23 lead, the Ducks faltered and the Huskies took a 25-24 lead.
Washington needed only one more point to win the second set, and a controversial call ended up costing Oregon the set. The Huskies spiked the ball out of bounds, and after the original call was ruled as out, the head judge stepped in and overruled the call, saying that an Oregon blocker touched the spike.
“My issue was (the line judge) called the ball down, and the up official said ‘no, it wasn’t down,’ and then (the line judge) calls a touch and the up official obviously said there was no touch because he waited,” said Moore. “So he didn’t see a touch but then he’s like, ‘Oh yeah, it’s a touch.’ So you listen to them some of the time, not all of the time.”
Already facing a 2-0 hole, the Ducks seemed flustered and simply could not find a rhythm in the third set, falling behind 13-6 at one point and eventually losing the set 25-19 and the match 3-0.
“I’m disappointed in the third set that we came out and we panicked,” said Moore. “We didn’t give up but we panicked, and then we made a whole bunch of errors, and then it was pretty much over with.”
Despite the questionable call in the second set, Moore did not blame the officiating
“There were several huge momentum swingers,” said Moore. “You’ve got to overcome that, they were better than us and it’s that simple.”
Among the bright spots of the match were Newcombe and senior outside hitter Neticia Enesi. Enesi hit .565 with 13 kills, while Newcombe hit .300 with 17 kills.
There was plenty to learn from this tough defeat, and both Moore and his players know that they will have to quickly forget this game and focus on a Sunday match up with Washington State.
“Win or lose, we play Sunday,” said Moore. “We’ll be ready, we’ve got to get ourselves prepared. We have been out of rhythm. We struggled through last week. We’ll get ourselves back in rhythm. We’re at a little valley in the season and those things happen.”
“You always try your hardest and whatever the result, win or loss, it’s the beginning of the season so we’ve got the whole rest of the season to go,” said Enesi. “I think we learned from tonight and we’ll regain that confidence and rhythm back on Sunday.”
