Volleyball suffers tough loss to St. Mary’s

Kiva Herman / The USD Vista

The University of San Diego women’s volleyball team encountered a tough two game stretch. The first game they played was against St. Mary’s and the Toreros were unable to recover from their early mistakes as they dropped their second conference game of the season.

The Gaels took an early advantage in the match winning the first two sets. In the first set, both teams battled back and forth and SMC closed out the set 25-22. In the second set, SMC was able to take advantage of several USD errors and jumped out to a 10-4 lead. USD then returned the favor with a 5-2 run but the Gaels responded with a 7-2 run to finish out the set 25-14. USD fought back and won the third set 25-21 but the Gaels regained momentum to jump to a 21-15 lead to win the fourth set to finish with 25-21 victory. USD is now tied for first place in the WCC at 9-2 with the San Francisco Dons. With the win, the Gaels improve to 19-6 overall and move to 9-3 in the WCC, good enough for third place.

Three Toreros had double-digit kills; Ali Troost recorded 17 kills, Amy DeGroot contributed 13 and Torey Ellick added 10. Also contributed were Jessica Nyrop, who recorded a game high 46 assists, and Andrea Csaszi recorded 19.

On Saturday afternoon the Toreros faced No. 21 Santa Clara Broncos at their final WCC conference match up at the Jenny Craig Pavilion. USD was able to bounce back and sweep the Broncos 3-0 (25-22, 25-21, 25-17). With the victory, the Toreros improved to 20-4 overall and move to 10-2 in the WCC, while the Broncos fell to 17-8 overall and 8-5 in the WCC.

DeGroot had 17 kills and Troost had 13 kills. Nyrop recorded a game high 39 assists to lead USD offense and Csaszi also recored a game high 17 digs. In sets one and two, both teams went back and forth in taking the lead over each over. But USD’s offense was strong enough to finish out both sets (25-22, 25-21). In the third and final set, the Toreros took the momentum early and kept it going. With the score knotted at 4-4, a Colleen Carlson kill ignited a 10-3 USD run and the team continued with a 25-17 victory to win the match in three sets.

The Toreros will return to action in their final WCC games today as they travel to Los Angeles this weekend to play Loyola Marymount and then they will take on Pepperdine.