Sept. 18, 2010
Box Score
SAN DIEGO, Calif. - Behind a 17 kill performance from senior right side Ali Troost, the 23rd ranked Volleyball team picked up a 3-0 (28-26, 25-23, 25-11) over visiting UC Santa Barbara Saturday morning in the second game of the USD-SDSU Invitational.
With the win, the Toreros improve to 7-3 and have now won its fifth consecutive match. With the loss, the Gauchos fall to 5-6 overall.
Troost led all players with her 17 kills, and she committed no attack errors on 25 swings to post a .680 attack percentage. Chloe Ferrari and Ashton Basch were the other two Toreros to record double digit kills as they each had 10 kills. Senior outside hitter Amy Mahinalani DeGroot racked up a team-best 12 digs, while Kelsi Myers recorded 39 assists in helping steer the USD offense to a .322 attack percentage.
In the first set, it was all San Diego early on as USD raced out to a 9-2 lead and appeared to be in total control of things. Then with the score at 21-12 in favor of USD, UCSB went on a 10-1 run to tie things up and make the set really interesting. The Gauchos would then take set point at 26-25, however the Toreros had victory in their minds as back-to-back kills by Troost gave USD set point and an UCSB attack error gave USD the 28-26 win.
In the second set, the Gauchos continued that momentum from the end of the first set into the second set and raced out to a 4-1 lead. But a DeGroot kill off a set form Myers got USD going as they put together a 5-1 run that was capped on a Troost kill to give USD a 6-5 advantage. The two teams then sea sawed back and forth for a majority of the set with both teams taking their turn with the lead and neither team having a lead bigger than three. Finally late in the match with the score knotted at 23 all, a Santa Barbara attack error gave USD set point, and Basch put things away with a kill off a set from Myers to give USD a 25-23 win.
In the third and final set, San Diego and Santa Barbara battled closely in the early going, then with the score at 13-11, a Basch kill ignited a 12-0 Torero run to close out the match and give USD the sweep over the Gauchos.
The Toreros will return to action later this evening as they host No. 12 Minnesota in the championship game of the tournament at the Jenny Craig Pavilion. The match is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m.
