Sept. 3, 2014

WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE: The 15th-ranked University of San Diego women's volleyball team (2-1) will open its home portion of the 2014 schedule this week, as they co-host the USD-SDSU 2014 Challenge. On Friday, USD opens the home schedule with a 2 p.m. match against Brown, followed by a 7 p.m. match-up with Villanova. USD then concludes the tournament on Saturday evening with a 7 p.m. match against Northwestern. Both the Northwestern and Villanova matches will be aired live on The W.tv. Callinf thr play-by-play action on Friday will be Jack Cronin, and calling the action on Saturday will be Allie Hillgren.

LAST TIMEOUT: The University of San Diego opened up the first weekend of play with a 2-1 second place finish at the Motar Board Premier tournament, hosted by the Boilermakersw of Purdure University. USD begam the season with a 3-1 win over LSU, behind a career-high 21-kill performance from Alaysia Brown. Brown paced the Torero offense as she recorded a career-high 21 kills on 45 attempts to hit for a .378 clip, and the Fresno, Calif. Native recorded four blocks, one solo. Canace Finley was the second Torero in double digit kills with 11, while hitting for a .500 clip. Jianna Bonomi recorded a double-double with 30 assists and 14 digs, while Sanfdra Lozic had a near double-double with nine kills and 10 digs. Sophomore libero Hunter Jennings led all players with a career-high 21 digs. As a team, USD hit .248 for the match. USD then went on to suffer its first loss of the season, a 3-0 defeat to Purdue. In this match, Brown paced the Torero offense, as she recorded a team-best seven kills. Both Sandra Lozic and Lisa Kramer recorded six kills apiece. Bonomi recorded a team-best 22 assists, while Hunter Jennings racked up 13 digs. As a team, USD hit .135. USD then closed out the weekend wiht a 3-0 win over South Florida. In this match, Lozic recorded a season-high 14 kills on 24 swings, to hit for a .583 clip, and she recorded seven digs. The only other Torero in double-digit kills was Sofia Lavin, who recorded a career-high 11 on 22 swings to hit for a .364 clip, and she recorded nine digs. Bonomi recorded a team-best 20 assists, while helping steer the USD offense to a season-high team attack percentage of .412.

SCOUTING THE BEARS: Brown University will begin its 2014 season this weekend in the USD-SDSU Challenge after posting a record of 12-13 this past season. The Brown offense is paced by Kathryn Conner and Maddie Lord. Conner led Brown with 3.68 digs per set last season. Conner logged double-digit digs in all but four matches and eclipsed the 20-dig mark twice. A Second Team All-Ivy selection in 2013, Lord paced Brown with 2.69 kills per set to finish 10th in the Ivy League. The Bears' top server ranked fourth in the Ancient Eight with 30 aces while also tallying 1.19 digs per set. USD leads the all-time series at 3-0.

SCOUTING THE WILDCATS: Villanova enters the week with a perfect 3-0 record after sweeping Charleston Southern, Norfolk State, and James Madison at the James Madison Tournament this past weekend. Lauren Carpenter earned a spot on the BIG EAST Honor Roll list for week one of the 2014 volleyball season. She hit .250 in nine sets this past weekend in the JMU Classic in Harrisonburg, Va. The junior recorded 41 kills and averaged 4.56 per set as well as 2.33 digs per set. Her performance earned her the Tournament MVP honor. This will be the first meeting between these two programs.

SCOUTING THE WILDCATS: Northwestern enters the week with an overall record of 3-0 after winning the NIU Tournament this past weekend. The Wildcats picked up a 3-2 win over Colorado, then had a 3-0 wins over both Presbyterian and Northern Illinois. USD leads the all-time series at 1-0. Senior outside hitter Yewande Akanbi paces the Wildcat offense as she has recorded a team-best 42kills (3.82 kps), and is hitting .369. The floor leader for the Wildcats is freshman setter Taylor Tashima, who has recorded 120 assists in helping steer the Wildcat offense to a team attack percentage of .350.

LAST TIME VS. BROWN: The University of San Diego women's volleyball team continued to roll in the USD Invitational on September 16, 2006, as they cruised to a 3-0 sweep over Brown University in the first match of the day at the Jenny Craig Pavilion. Offensively for the Toreros, Laura Murphy, Laurel Abrahamson and Erin Wiskar recorded a team-best nine kills apiece. Abrahamson had nine kills come on 16 attempts and only committed one attacking error for a match-best .500 attacking percentage. Jessica Andersen also had a solid day for the Toreros as she had eight kills on 17 attempts and committed no attacking errors for an attack percentage of .471. Jessica Nyrop had a match-best 37 assists to help direct the Toreros' offense.

LAST TIME VS. NORTHWESTERN: The University of San Diego women's volleyball team battled to a 3-2 win over Northwestern University on September 6, 2002. Noel Frohman paced the team's offense with 25 kills, while also recording 10 digs to post a double-double. Devon Forester also had a great match, as she recorded 17 kills, while racking up 13 digs to also post a double-double. Forester also recorded eight blocks. Lindsey Sherburne racked up 54 assists in helping steer the USD offense to a .233 attack percentage.

WITH HONORS: San Diego had a pair of players named to the All-Tournament team at the Motar Board Premier this past weekend. Alaysia Brown and Jianna Bonomi were both on this list. Brown paced the Torero offense, as she recorded a team-best 37 kills, hit for a .272 clip and she had six blocks. Brown began the season with a bang, as she recorded a career-high 21 kills on 45 attempts to hit for a .378 clip, and the Fresno, Calif. Native recorded four blocks, one solo. She then followed that up with a 9-kill performance against No. 9 Purdue, and she closed out the weekend with another 9-kill performance in a win over South Florida. Bonomi on the other hand, was the floor general for the Toreros, as she recorded 72 assists (7.20 aps), while helping steer the Torero offense to a .260 team attack percentage. Bonomi recorded one double-double in the season opener against LSU, in which she recorded 30 assists and 14 digs.

LAVIN RECORDS A CAREER-HIGH: Sophomore outside hitter Sofia Lavin recorded a career-high 11 kills in the 3-0 win over South Florida. Lavin recorded her 11 kills on a career-high 22 swings, to hit for a .364 clip. She also recorded a career-high with nine digs in this same match.

FINELY MAKES A GOOD IMPRESSION: Junior middle hitter transfer Canace Finley made a great impression in her first match as a Torero. Finley recorded a career-high 11 kills in the season-opener against LSU, while hitting for a .500 clip. She is currently third on the team in kills with 28, and is hitting for a .392 clip in the young season.

THEW.TV: This season San Diego will be featured on the West Coast Conference's new digital platform, TheW.tv, 16 times. All 16 of these productions will have a multi-camera high definition broadcast with a play-by-play announcer. USD will have 13 home matches live on TheW.tv, and a pair of road matches, @ Pacific (10/11), @ San Francisco (10/30), and @ Gonzaga (11/20), this season. All watch links for these matches can be found on the USD women's volleyball schedule page. The Toreros will also have a pair of televised matches, a ESPNU broadcast @ Saint Mary's (10/8), and the second coming on BYUTV in Provo on Nov.14.

THE RANKINGS: The Toreros dropped one spot to No. 15 on the latest AVCA top-25 poll after posting a 2-1 record this past weekend. None of the other teams playing this weekend are in any of the top-25 polls.

I NEED STATS STAT!: All San Diego volleyball home matches can be followed via Statbroadcast, on the Toreros athletic web site at usdtoreros.com. Statbroadcast is a real time update of the action. Selected San Diego road matches are also available via Gametracker and Statbroadcast. To see if live stats are available for a match, go to San Diego volleyball schedule page, and if any type of live stats are available, you will see those links there.