After dropping two sets to Arizona State, the Duck’s brought their win streak to 10 as they rallied to win the fourth and fifth sets and defeat the Sun Devils 3-2 on Friday during their first Pac-12 road trip of the season.
Though ASU scored the first two points of the first set, the Ducks quickly answered with four points of their own with kills from sophomore Sumeet Gill, junior Taylor Agost, and freshman Jolie Rasmussen. The Sun Devils were only able to score one more point before the Ducks went on another run, this one for three points, resulting in an early 7-3 lead. Yet, the Sun Devils were able to fight back by going on their own three-point run.
Later in the set, Oregon and ASU had been trading points, until Oregon went on yet another three-point run to a 19-16 lead. Rasmussen and junior Lindsey Vander Weide had back-to-back kills, forcing ASU to a timeout.
At the end of the set, Oregon pulled to a 24-20 lead. They won the set by a score of 25-21 on a block by Gill and Rasmussen.
Despite the victory, the Ducks looked sluggish in the beginning of the second set, allowing ASU to get up to a 5-10 lead before Oregon was forced to take a timeout. After the timeout, the Sun Devils would score two more points for a total of five unanswered points, three of them kills.
It improved slowly from there for the Ducks. Arizona State maintained its lead throughout the set, but Oregon was able to keep them in sight, eventually narrowing the gap to 20-17. But, Oregon’s hopes were quickly dashed. ASU scored five points in a row to win the set 25-20. Four of the points came from attack errors.
In fact, Oregon had nime errors in the second set, when in the first set they only had two. Rasmussen had five of those errors. In addition, Oregon only had seven kills in the whole set.
The teams were more evenly matched in the third set, as they stayed tied through most of it, though there wasn’t much defense. Both teams traded 14 kills in a row between them at the beginning of the set before the streak was broken up by a block by Arizona State.
Later in the set, Oregon would go on its first run of the set that yielded more than two points. Agost and Rasmussen scored back-to-back kills and sophomore August Raskie had an ace to take the lead with a score of 20-19.
By the end of the set, the score was tied at 24-24, and Oregon decided to take a timeout. Willow Johnson attempted a kill, but it was barely out-of-bounds, giving ASU the point. She would repeat the error as ASU won the set 26-24, snapping Oregon’s undefeated set streak at 19.
The Sun Devils’ dominance continued into the beginning of the next set, taking an early 4-1 lead. But Oregon fought back, narrowing the score to 3-5. They continued by scoring five unanswered points, two of them from solo blocks from freshman Ronika Stone to take the lead with a score of 8-5. Stone would go on to finish the game with a team-leading five blocks, two of them solo.
Though Arizona State broke up the Ducks’ point streak with a kill by Jasmine Koonts, Oregon came back with eight more unanswered points before Arizona State could score again. They then took a commanding 16-6 lead.
The Ducks’ continued to steamroll over Arizona State, scoring seven more unanswered points to bring their lead to 24-8. After that, it was all over for ASU as the Ducks won the set 25-9.
Any hint of Oregon’s early sluggishness was gone by the final set of the match. Though ASU scored the first point, Oregon answered by scoring five of their own. Vander Weide put down her 15th and 16th kill of the match while Agost scored her thirteenth to take a 5-1 lead. They would finish the match with 17 and 14 kills, respectively.
The Ducks only allowed the Sun Devils to score twice in a row once in the set. Other than that, it was all Oregon as they won the set 15-7.
On Saturday, the Ducks will continue their Arizona road trip with a game against Arizona.
Follow Hannah Bonnie on Twitter @hbonnie03