Things are going so well for the UC Santa Barbara women’s volleyball this days that even a blocked attacked can ricochet off the head of the Gaucho hitter and find the floor on the opposing side for a point.
That crazy play gave outside hitter Briana McKnight one of her team-high 14 kills in a 25-18, 25-27, 25-23, 25-19 sweep of Long Beach State in a battle of the top two teams in the Big West standings on Friday night before 952 fans at the Thunderdome.
The win gave UCSB a rare season sweep over The Beach and completed a sweep against the upper echelon teams in the conference. The Gauchos also won home-and-away matches against Hawai’i and Cal Poly.
More importantly, the victory meant UCSB can finish no worse than second place in the final standings, which secures a first-round bye in the six-team Big West postseason tournament for the conference’s automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament.
The Gauchos improve to 14-1 in the Big West (24-3 overall), with three remaining matches against UC San Diego tonight and UC Davis and UC Riverside next week, all at home. Long Beach State (18-7), which had an eight-match winning streak snapped, remains in second place with a record of 12-3.
McKnight continued her outstanding play after posting double-digit kills last week in wins against Cal Poly (15) and Hawai’i (14) on the road and was honored as the Big West Player of the Week. On Friday, she put away 14 kills on a .256 hitting percentage, had two solo blocks and five total, 11 digs, and a service ace. She was the team’s leading scorer with 18.5 points.
On the point that slammed off her noggin, she said: “You just got to protect yourself, you know.”
That drew a big laugh from teammate Tasia Farmer during the post-game press conference and a funny comment from coach Matt Jones: “When we train, we train for everything…”
McKnight said she never saw the ball hit the floor. “I just saw my teammates faces, they were looking at me and screaming. It was just insane.”
Farmer couldn’t believe what she saw. “I was hyped, I was geeked. She’d been playing well the whole entire night, so it was like everything is going Bri’s way.”
Farmer who was playing in her fourth match since returning from an injury, also had a productive match, posting 11 kills on a .320 average.
“This match is probably my closest to 100 percent for sure (after the injury),” she said.
Farmer and McKnight gave praise to the setting of Grace McIntosh, Michelle Zhou and libero Macall Peed. They did a nice job putting the hitters in one-on-one situations. McIntosh dished out 23 assists and had 13 digs, Zhao handed out 15 assists and Peed added seven She also had a team-high 17 digs.
“I think it’s a credit to both Macall, G-Mac and Z,” said Farmer. “I think ‘Call’ does a good job in identifying what’s going on on the other side of the net, which helps out setters know where to set (the ball). And they just were putting up good tempo balls the whole time, so it was so easy score.”
Added McKnight: “They did a really good job of getting us in one-on-one opportunities which was really nice. That always helps, hitters always love a one-on-one opportunity.”
Another key to UCSB’s victory was its serving. The Gauchos served up 12 aces to five for The Beach.
“We served pretty damn tough, 12 aces is a lot,” said Jones. “That’s a very good passing team. Twelve aces means we were serving unbelievably well. I thought we were serving really tough. We were able to change our depth up, short and deep, really well and that kind of made it a little bit unpredictable.”
A pair of aces by Michelle Ohwobete keyed a 4-0 run in the first set that gave UCSB an 18-15 advantage, and the Gauchos never looked back.
In the second set, Peed served an ace during a 5-1 run for a 17-11 lead. The advantage swelled to 20-14 before Elise Agi of The Beach got on a roll. The outside hitter with a wickedly quick arm swing started pounding balls to ignite a comeback. Agi led all players with 22 kills on a .364 hitting percentage.
The Beach took a 25-24 lead on a UCSB net call. After a hitting error tied the score, Agi scored the next two points in a kill and a service ace to knot the match a one set apiece.
“I think they were able to identify what we were trying to do with our block against her, and she’s a skilled hitter so she just started hitting what we were leaving open,” said Jones of Agi.
The play of Andi Kreiling (8 kills) sparked the Gauchos in the third set. Her hitting in the middle helped them to a 21-15 lead. But The Beach fought back again and pulled to 23-21 on a block by Hanna Lesiak.
UCSB called timeout and The Beach committed a service error when play resumed.
Lesiak and middle Kameron Bacon scored consecutive points for The Beach to make it 24-23.
McIntosh fed Ohwobete for a kill out of the back row to finish the set for a 2-1 UCSB advantage. Ohwobete finished with nine kills in the match.
Three aces by McIntosh, who led the team with four, two kills from McKnight and a big dig by Ohwobete on Agi helped UCSB take a 21-13 lead in the fourth set.
On the final point, Peed set up Ohwobete, who hit nothing but the floor to keep the Gauchos alone in first place.
“We were able to make adjustments and play well,” said Jones. “Obviously, that second set, we don’t hide from it. We wish we could have that back. We felt it was ours and we kind of gave it away. But it happens, that’s part of volleyball.
“We talk a lot about dealing with adversity and how we can respond, and I thought we did a great job of responding after the second set and come back and win a tight third set. That just shows this team’s mental capacity, so that was great.”
