The WSU volleyball team ran through their three weekend opponents, taking the Air Force Academy Invitational with wins over Norfolk State, CSU Bakersfield and host school Air Force. The three wins pushed the Cougars winning streak to nine consecutive match victories.
WSU (10-2) faced Norfolk State on Friday morning to open the tournament, sweeping the match with set scores of 25-14, 25-15 and 15-13.
Jaicee Harris led the way for the Cougs, recording 13 kills and three blocks while Marcelina Glab tallied seven kills and four blocks. Defensively, Stephanie Logan and Ver’Leea Hardaway led the Cougs, both recording five blocks.
"It took us a while to get going, and I don't know if that was because it was an early match of (sic) getting used to their style of play, but we did a great job overall," WSU Head Coach Jen Greeny said in a press release.
"We need to make some adjustments a little quicker as we move forward," Greeny said. "I think our hitters did a great job of keeping the ball in play and putting the ball away, and Camryn (Irwin) did a nice job of distributing once again. Hitting .400 is a great match overall.”
After Norfolk State on Friday, the Cougs played CSU Bakersfield the same evening. It was the second time the two teams faced each other within six days, and the Cougs won again, this time 3-1, with set scores of 25-14, 25-27, 25-23 and 25-18.
Marcelina Glab took care of business for WSU, raking in career highs in both kills (13) and blocks (12). Harris and Rachel Todorovich also combined for 24 kills while Irwin put up 38 assists and seven blocks, a career high for her.
"After the first set I was saying, ‘welcome Marcelina Glab',"Greeny said."She was hitting over .800 (.857), but that is what we absolutely need and we've been waiting for Marce to play at this level. She hopefully took that as a challenge and came out and did a fantastic job tonight."
The Cougars wrapped up the tournament and won their ninth consecutive match against Air Force on Saturday, taking the match 3-1 with set scores of 23-25, 25-9, 25-14 and 25-21.
Harris again led the Cougs, racking up 23 kills, 10 digs and four blocks. Todorovich added 15 kills of her own while Hardaway and Glab combined for 13 blocks. WSU out-blocked Air Force 13.5 to 2 in the match.
"We settled down and served really tough and our blocking got going in that second set, so that gave us some confidence going into the third,"Greeny said."Air Force came back and made some switches in the fourth set, but we were able to adjust and win the match, so I'm very proud of that."
Up next for WSU is a Tuesday matchup against UW to begin Pac-12 play.
