It hardly seemed fair when No. 1 USC took the floor before Friday’s match with Oregon at McArthur Court.
The defending national champions featured a pair of All-Americans in 6-foot-6-inch middle blocker Emily Adams and outside hitter April Ross, along with four other players taller than 6-foot-1-inch. The Ducks roster contains nine freshmen, and only two players are as vertically gifted as the six USC players.
For the first 50 points of the match, it was hard to tell which team was the nation’s best. But after a Ross kill put the Trojans ahead 26-25 in game one, the Ducks were unable to recover and fell 3-0 (30-28, 30-22, 30-16) in front of 916 spectators at Mac Court.
Despite the loss, Oregon (3-17 overall, 0-11 Pacific-10 Conference) achieved a new season best with 12.5 blocks, just one night after banging out a season-high 85 digs against No. 9 UCLA. Oregon’s front liners held their own at the net despite the Trojans’ height advantage.
“They certainly were in our rhythm,” USC head coach Mick Haley said. “(Oregon head coach Carl Ferreira) had them prepared very well. A lot of times, with our system, people can get in our rhythm, but we just try to overpower you a little bit.
“But we weren’t able to do that as well. I thought they were very good.”
Freshman Kristen Bitter led the way with eight block assists. Bitter said that the Ducks entered the match confident after winning their first conference game on Thursday against UCLA.
“A lot of our success was from (Thursday), but it’s also been building in practice,” Bitter said. “We’ve been grinding away. We know that we can be a good blocking team, it’s just a matter of bringing it to the match, and that’s what we did.”
Jaclyn Jones finished with seven block assists, five kills and seven digs. The sophomore outside hitter said the Ducks were shocked early on at their ability to control the net against players like Adams and 6-foot-5-inch middle blocker Bibiana Candelas.
“At first, when we were blocking them, I couldn’t believe it,” Jones said. “They’re USC. We were like, ‘what?’”
Freshman Sarah Mason and junior Lauren Westendorf led Oregon with nine kills each. Sophomore Jodi Bell dished out 25 assists and sophomore Kelly Russell contributed seven digs.
After two competitive games, USC (20-0, 11-0) was able to dominate Oregon in game three. Ross, Adams, Candelas and 6-foot-3-inch middle blocker Katie Olsovsky combined for 39 kills.
Ross was able to keep Oregon off-balance with her service game. The two-time American Volleyball Coaches Association All-American finished with three aces, and her crisp serves forced the Ducks into many split-second decisions.
“When April gets those serves going, the top 10 teams in the country have trouble with it,” Haley said.
Haley added that the Ducks had improved under Ferreira since the Trojans defeated them, 3-0, on Sept. 27 in Los Angeles.
“As long as they pay attention to their coach, they’ll keep getting better,” Haley said. “(Ferreira) has a good system. In the past it seems like some of the kids weren’t buying into it. But these kids seem like they’re buying into it and I think you’re seeing the results. They played hard all three games and they were in the first two.”