TURLOCK — Keeping the ball off the floor on your side of the net is basically the purpose of volleyball. Well, the Stanislaus State Warriors did that for sure Saturday night en route to posting the season's signature win over Cal Poly Pomona.
As a team, the Warriors picked up 108 digs in a four-set match to beat one of the best teams in the region, 18-25, 25-21, 25-20, 25-21. Stan State snapped a seven-match skid in the series against Cal Poly Pomona while going 3-0 this week at home to improve to 12-5 overall and 6-5 in the California Collegiate Athletic Association.
Extending plays and rallies — and there were many long rallies with 30-plus touches by both sides in a sequence — the Warriors needed just 54 total kills for the win. That's because Stan State picked up wins on blocks and service aces as well as forcing Pomona hitting errors.
Taylor Massengale had a monsterous match with 12 kills and seven total blocks — two of them solos — in controlling the net. The Broncos (11-7, 7-3 CCAA) were forced to hit around her and had trouble finding consistant answers.
Lindsay Skadeland and
Courtney Lewis each had 11 kills and
Blair Ehrlich added nine more.
Paige Walker came off the bench with seven kills and 17 digs for another strong night. Walker also had two of the team's eight service aces.
Of the 108 team digs, libero
Sarah Crowl and setter
Maddi Seidl accounted for 23 apiece. Three other Warriors — Ehrlich (13),
Hailey Gruetzmacher (12) and
Sierrah Miller (10) were also in double figures.
Stanislaus State currently leads the CCAA with 19.68 digs per set and third in total digs for the season at 1,220.
After narrowly falling set one, 25-18, the Warriors dominated the second set. They ran out to a 20-9 lead before the Broncos decided to make a run. Pomona came all the way back to make it 23-19 on a 10-3 run to push Stanislaus. Lewis gave the Warriors their 24th point before
Jocelyn Cervantes closed out the set at 25-21.
The Broncos were led by Alexa Hasen with 10 kills. Zoe Herrera had 31 of Pomona's 103 digs.
At 12-5, the Warriors are just one win away from matching the 2010 team which went 13-14. The last time the Stanislaus State volleyball team had a winning season was in 2002 when the Warriors went 19-13. The only other winning season during the Division II era was a 18-13 season in 2000.
