The WSU volleyball team returns from their road trip after being swept by both No. 4 University of Southern California (USC) 3-0 (25-21, 25-8, 25-16) and No. 1 University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) 3-0 (25-16, 25-20, 25-17).
On Friday, the Cougs visited USC, dropping the match and falling to 12-13 (4-11).
For the second time this season, senior Meagan Ganzer was held to single digit kills, with a total of seven.
Leading the Cougars was junior Rachel Todorovich with nine kills, a .471 hitting percentage and two blocks.
Also contributing for WSU was sophomore Camryn Irwin with 19 assists and seven digs, as well as sophomores Jordan Levenseller with seven digs and Marcelina Glab with two service aces.
"This USC team is so talented and their players get to see this caliber of volleyball all the time in their practice gym and we just aren't quite there yet," WSU Head Coach Jen Greeny said in a press release. "We really had trouble with passing, especially the jump serves of Alex Jupiter, and we didn't dig very well. We will get there and we are working on it but we will see the same thing on Sunday so hopefully we can adapt and do a better job."
The Cougars didn’t fare much better on their trip across Los Angeles to play UCLA on Sunday, again being swept 3-0, this time against the top team in nation. The victory for UCLA was their eighth consecutive conference victory.
The loss drops the record for WSU to 12-14 (4-12) on the year, leaving the team with only six more chances to get the four wins needed to reach the team goal of 16.
"UCLA is a very disciplined team and has so many weapons. When a team is hitting .381 and side outs at 94 percent in the first set, that is really hard to compete against," Greeny said in a press release. "We weren't making a ton of mistakes but they were so efficient with what they were doing and right now that is hard for us to keep up with."
In the loss Ganzer contributed 11 kills and 10 digs, freshman Chelsey Bettinson had eight kills and two blocks, Irwin tallied 25 assists and Levenseller recorded 10 digs.
Next up for WSU is a set of home matches during Dad’s Weekend in Bohler Gym. The Cougars host No. 7 California (23-4, 13-4) on Friday and No. 3 Stanford (19-4, 13-4) on Sunday.
