Takeaways: Oregon Ducks volleyball falls to Washington State in top 10 showdown
In an early conference season top-10 showdown, the No. 6 Oregon volleyball team dug itself into too many holes, committed too many errors, and gave up too many long runs in a four-set loss (25-14, 20-25, 29-27, 25-23) to No. 7 Washington State Sunday afternoon at Matthew Knight Arena.
The match was bookended by massive runs, as the Cougars (14-1, 4-0 Pac-12) roared out to a 10-0 lead before the Ducks (13-2, 3-1 Pac-12) managed a point in the first set and ended the fourth and deciding set on a 6-0 run after Oregon led throughout the final set.
'We were not very mentally tough'
The Ducks got in their own way often, with 12 attack errors in the first set alone and 37 for the match.
“I was out of all the things I could do,” Oregon coach Matt Ulmer said of the long runs. “We were not very mentally tough … not as a group. Some individuals, we have to be mentally stronger.”
Falling behind 10-0 in the opening set, the Ducks built up some momentum toward the end of the first set and came out firing for a second set win to tie the match at 1-1.
Led by their middles in Karson Bacon and Kara McGhee, the Ducks were able to reestablish the interior. Bacon finished with 11 kills with a solo block and four more block assists. McGhee racked up six kills and two solo blocks. Those two, along with setter Hannah Pukis (five kills), were the only Ducks with a hitting percentage above .200.
Sophomore and reigning National Freshman of the Year Mimi Colyer finished with 10 kills but had 14 errors and a negative hitting percentage.
“We gave so many points away, especially in that first set,” Ulmer said. “We tried too hard, we were trying to avoid the block or just create things and it just made for a lot of unforced errors for us. She (Colyer) just needs to be calmer at the start … she was excited, she wanted to get that ball and got ahead of it and it put her in a bad spot.”
Oregon hoping to learn lessons from early conference loss
With more strong challenges ahead, including a rematch with Washington State later in the year and two more matches against both No. 3 Stanford and No. 25 Arizona State, Ulmer and the Ducks are hoping this early conference loss serves as an early lesson for the remainder of the year.
“I think generally that’s a big strength for us,” Ulmer said of his team’s mental toughness. “In a lot of areas we were beautiful tonight, I thought we served great, normally that’s a great sign. We played great defense, blocked really well, passed well, we just didn’t take great swings.”
Ducks down Huskies on Friday
Earlier in the weekend, the Ducks had to overcome a slow start, but rode out a four-set win (21-25, 25-17, 25-20, 25-22) over Washington Friday night at MKA.
Oregon dropped its first set of conference play to start the match, but quickly settled in and delivered another win, hitting nearly .300 over the game’s final two sets.
Ohio State transfer Gabby Gonzales racked up a team-high 15 kills, recording her 1,000th career kill in the win. Colyer (14) and McGhee (10) also finished with double-digit kills. Setter Pukis dished out 48 assists, and Georgia Murphy led the Ducks with 15 digs.
Oregon takes on the mountain schools on the road for its next matches, opening against Colorado in Boulder on Friday before heading to Salt Lake City for a tilt against Utah on Sunday.
Alec Dietz covers University of Oregon football, volleyball, women’s basketball and baseball for The Register-Guard. You may reach him at adietz@registerguard.com, and you can follow him on Twitter @AlecDietz.
This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Oregon Ducks volleyball falls to Washington State Cougars
