Box Score Oct. 18, 2014 Final Stats IRVINE, Calif. - Junior outside hitter
Kaylin Squyres tallied a match-high 19 kills while senior libero
Megan Lancaster added 24 digs, but UC Davis was unable to close out set points in the first and second sets, falling 28-26, 26-24 and 25-16 to UC Irvine in Big West Conference women's volleyball action at Bren Events Center Saturday evening.
The Aggies snap their season-long win streak at four, falling to 9-10 overall and 4-2 in conference. The Anteaters improve to 14-7 for the year and 4-3 in Big West play.
Squyres, less than 24 hours removed from her career-high 25 kills at Cal State Fullerton, committed just six errors on 59 attempts for a .220 average. Lancaster's match-best digs brings her weekend total to 46. Redshirt freshman Erika Conners added three service aces and 12 digs to go with her 22 assists. Senior middle blocker Katie Quinn paced the Aggie net defense with six block assists. UC Davis tallied nine team blocks overall.
For UCI, sophomore Cassidy Pickrell notched 15 kills and 16 digs while senior Allison Lee also had a double-double of 14 kills and 14 digs. Sophomore setter Shelley Anderson recorded 45 of her team's 50 assists. Libero Arden Davis led five total Anteaters in double-figured digs, tallying 21 for the night.
UC Davis held at least one set point in each of the first two frames before yielding key Anteater points at the end. In the opener, sophomore Allie Wegener pounded out three kills during a 9-7 start while a Squyres kill set the board at 12-11 before UCI took its first lead at 13-12. Squyres later put down a pair of kills in a 3-1 run that gave the Aggies a 22-19 edge, while her eighth kill of the set forged a 23-21 advantage. An Anteater attack error gave UC Davis its first set point at 24-23 but a net violation and a Marisa Bubica kill flipped the script and put the `Eaters up by 25-24. Conners served up an ace to again put the Aggies at 26-25. Bubica responded with three straight kills to stun her guests with the opening-set win.
The second set proved even more heartbreaking for UC Davis, which held a 24-21 quadruple set point before surrendering six unanswered. Wegener and Quinn had teamed up for a pair of blocks during a 6-1 Aggie run that turned a 9-7 deficit to a 13-10 lead earlier in the stanza. Middle blocker Aima Eichie later scored a block assist and a kill to forge UC Davis' lead to 1-16. Brain teamed up with Quinn for a stuff on the Aggies' 22nd point, assisted Squyres on a kill for the 23rd, then converted the side out with a kill to make it 24-21. Molly Yoder served out most of the `Eaters final push, with Pickrell delivering back-to-back kills to snipe the win from UC Davis and send UC Irvine to the break with a 2-0 match lead.
Perhaps riding the momentum from their second-set comeback, the Anteaters stormed to a 15-7 lead in the third, helped by six unanswered points in which UC Davis burned both of its timeouts. Four different UCI players earned kills in that run. The Aggies responded by scoring five of the next six to cut the deficit to 16-12. Squyres had three kills and Brain another two in that stretch. However, that four-point margin proved to be the closest the Aggies got in the latter half of the third set. The Anteaters gradually pulled away to a nine-point win and a finish to their match sweep.
UC Davis saw its hitting average diminish from a respectable .231 in the first set to .152 in the second and .137 in the third. Meanwhile, UC Irvine hit at a .290 rate for the match, including better than .300 in each of the first and third frames.
The Aggies return to action in a road trip against two of the Big West's toughest teams, namely Cal State Northridge (Oct. 24) and Long Beach State (Oct. 25).
