WSU volleyball finishes undefeated weekend without dropping a set

The brooms were out on the East Coast this last weekend with Washington State volleyball posting three sweep matches over Howard, Fairfield, and Fairleigh Dickinson.

First Match: WSU def. Howard 3-0 (25-13, 25-17, 25-22)

On Friday morning, WSU’s senior outside hitter Pia Timmer led the Cougs with nine kills as the Cougs cruised their way past Howard. Overall, the Cougs held Howard to a .151 hitting percentage.

After her stand-out Bohler Gym debut, the fifth-year senior Laura Jansen finished this match with seven kills and a hitting percentage of .294. She had 17 attempts overall. Adding to this three-way tie, Magda Jehalrova and Katy Ryan both added seven kills to the Cougs total of 35. Overall, the Cougs finished with a .338 hitting percentage for the first match of the tournament.

Head Coach Jen Greeny mentioned how Jansen can play so effectively allowing pressure to be taken off of Timmer and Ryan.

Howard, however, had a little bit of a rougher day. The Bison suffered 19 errors on attacks and had 13 service errors. The Cougs did tally six aces against the Bison due to the errors that occurred on the other side of the court.

The Cougs also saw setter Molly Kipp come in and relieve Argentina Ung. Kipp had eight assists as setter and helped wrap up the first match of the tournament.

Ung finished with 16 assists while libero Karly Basham had eight digs. Both helped the offense of WSU continue to dominate and get the first win that would set up the two following sweeps.

Second Match: WSU def. Fairfield 3-0 (25-17, 25-12, 25-22)

With the first broom out, the Cougs were looking for two more and they got their second one on Friday afternoon. WSU had a dynamite performance with three women finishing with four or more blocks.

A couple of Cougs also had career-/season-best performances. Jansen finished with a season-high of 16 kills and Ung finished with 46 assists which are a career-high for the setter. Jasmine Martin, Ryan, and Jehlarova totaled 13 blocks between the three of them. Martin and Ryan had four blocks while Jehlarova had five blocks. Ung had three more blocks to add to the win for the Cougs. As a team, WSU hit a .387.

Greeny also mentioned how overall this game was cleaner for the Cougs than their match against Howard earlier in the morning match.

The Cougs did have a slower start than they would have liked to. At one point the Cougs went on a 9-1 run and the Cougs were tied 16-16, but the Cougs did what they do best and dominated offensively and defensively and won 25-17.

So far Jansen has the best hitting percentage of any Coug this season with a percentage of .565. Greeny also mentioned that this was one of Jansen’s best matches since joining the crimson and gray.

In the second set, the Cougs went on a 10-3 run at the beginning of the second set. WSU led the whole match and never looked back.

Sideout-wise, the Cougs had a 92 percent going twelve of 13. Fairfield continued to have error after error which helped the Cougs win the set.

In the third set, the Cougs moved into an explosive mode on their side of the court. Jansen and Timmer both had five kills in the third set, however, it was Jansen that finished with the last three points of the match.

With two sweeps and one match left, the Cougs looked to their match on Saturday to see if they would leave the East Coast with a perfect record.

Third Match: WSU def. Fairleigh Dickinson 3-0 (25-9, 25-15, 25-15)

Once again it was Jansen that had the standout performance of the night.

The Cougs also moved to 8-1 with this last win. The Cougs had 14 aces on Saturday and Jansen had four of them, which was the team high for the match.

The last time the Cougs had 14 aces was in 1992 against Rhode Island. Ryan and Martin had career highs in blocks, Martin with nine and Ryan with eight. The Cougs finished the day with eleven blocks which were two away from the 13 that would have been the Cougs’ season high.

Defensively WSU held Fairleigh Dickinson at a -.151 hitting percentage. Being the serving line, the Cougs had a percentage of .918. FDU had eight service errors in total. The Cougs saw four different players have aces.

Jehlarova led the team with a hitting percentage of .583 and also led the Cougs with eight kills. On the other side of the court, Ung recorded 20 assists and six defensive digs. Basham had another amazing serving game with a total of two and also had five digs throughout the match.

The Cougs dominated both offensively and defensively and held FDU to 39 total points and were able to use the 24 attacking errors to their advantage.

This next weekend the Cougs are going to be traveling to the Midwest to play in the Minnesota Diet Coke Classic. The Cougs will be playing #3 Minnesota and #24 Pepperdine at the tournament, marking the first big matchup since the Cougs played BYU in their first pre-season tournament.

LINKS

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