The suddenly well-oiled Oregon volleyball machine took its act on the road last weekend and toppled two more top-five teams in the process.
After stunning then-No. 1 UCLA last Friday, the No. 15 Ducks@@http://www.ncaa.com/rankings/volleyball-women/d1/avca_coaches@@ beat No. 3 Cal (25-6, 15-6 Pac-12) and No. 5 Stanford (21-6, 15-6 Pac-12) in the Bay Area this weekend.@@http://www.pac-12.org/SPORTS/Volleyball/Standings.aspx@@
With only two games left in the regular season, the Ducks (20-18, 13-7 Pac-12)@@see previous@@ are peaking. The timing couldn’t be any better.
“It feels like we’re playing better than we have all year long, so that’s a good thing,” Oregon head coach Jim Moore@@CE@@ said. “This is when you want to be playing your best volleyball.”
All that’s left for Oregon is to figure out how to start better. Although they’ve won six of their past seven games,@@http://www.goducks.com/SportSelect.dbml?&DB_OEM_ID=500&SPID=234&SPSID=4284@@ the Ducks have lost the first set in their past four matches.@@CE@@
It’s hard to argue with results, however.
“I think we just have a lot of fight,” Duck outside hitter Liz Brenner@@roster@@ said. “A lot of teams, if they go down 0-2 — especially against top-five teams — they’re done. But I think it shows a lot of character that we were able to go down like that and come back and fight hard and give it everything we had and come out with the ‘W’”.
In a 23-25, 25-20, 25-14, 22-25, 15-9@@http://www.goducks.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPID=234&DB_OEM_ID=500&ATCLID=205335697@@ win over Stanford on Friday, Brenner made sure the Ducks’ slow start didn’t get in the way of a victory.
She had one of the best matches of any Duck in recent memory, tallying career highs in kills (31) and hitting percentage (.651).@@see previous@@
“I don’t even know how to describe that,” Moore said. “You get 31 kills on 43 swings, that’s just one of those nights. It was one of those nights that took all the pressure off everybody. It was an unbelievable performance.”
Brenner’s offense and Oregon’s stingy defense — the Ducks held the Cardinal to a .234 hitting efficiency and had 11.0 blocks@@see previous@@ — led to Oregon’s first win over Stanford in Palo Alto in program history.@@see previous@@ The teams have met 57 times in the series’ history.@@see previous@@
“I got a lot of texts from former players last night, and they know how hard this road trip is,” Moore said. “This is another step toward getting to where we want to go, and sometimes it doesn’t happen as fast as we want, but this was a big step for us.”
Beating Cal 23-25, 19-25, 25-18, 26-24, 15-9@@http://www.goducks.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPID=234&DB_OEM_ID=500&ATCLID=205336274@@ on Saturday night, the Ducks’ first road win over the Bears since 2006, was also a significant victory.@@see previous@@ Four Ducks — Brenner, Alaina Bergsma, Katherine Fischer, and Ariana Williams@@all on roster@@ — had at least 13 kills in a balanced offensive effort.@@see previous@@
“It’s definitely helpful when you have a lot of production out of more than one person,” Brenner said. “When you have three people, four people, having over ten kills, that’s really hard to stop.”
But Oregon’s defense was just as critical.
After allowing Cal to hit .440 and .375 in the first two sets,@@see previous@@ the Ducks clamped down, holding the Bears to .097, .255, and -.095, respectively, in the match’s final three sets.
“We weren’t digging any balls (in the first two sets), because we were trying so hard to dig balls, and people were running all over the place so we weren’t calm, and we weren’t being disciplined,” Moore said. “We were able to get them to recognize that, and they calmed down and from that point on we started digging balls. We became the team that we’re capable of being.”
In doing so, Oregon improved its odds to host an NCAA regional tournament, a distinction afforded to 16@@can’t confirm@@ of the nation’s top teams.
“It increases our chance to host — by a lot,” Moore said. “We can’t control that. We just have to wait and see what the committee does, and we’ll deal with whatever comes before us.”
The Ducks will return to play at 7 p.m. Tuesday when they visit Oregon State before concluding the regular season with a home date against the Beavers on Friday.@@http://www.goducks.com/SportSelect.dbml?&DB_OEM_ID=500&SPID=234&SPSID=4284@@
Oregon volleyball upsets No. 3 Cal, No. 5 Stanford
Daily Emerald
November 19, 2011
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