Roberta Gehlke, arguably the most prolific women’s volleyball player to ever don a UCSB jersey, was unveiled as the first “Legend of the Dome” before Saturday night’s match against UC Davis.
Gehlke flew out from Texas, but was unfortunately unable to attend due to a case of swine flu in her family.
After giving up a 6-1 lead in the fifth and final set, the Gauchos probably felt a little sick as well. The Aggies ended up winning the Big West contest 25-19, 23-25, 25-14, 21-25, 18-16.
It was the Aggies’ first-ever win over the Gauchos, who lost their first home match of the season. It was also the Gauchos’ fifth 5-setter in their last seven matches.
“What I’m disappointed about is that we were in a position to win… Tonight we just let it go. I give Davis a lot of credit,” said coach Kathy Gregory.
Rebecca Saraceno did her part, putting away 28 kills for a hitting clip of .362, but the Gauchos missed 11 serves and seemed out of sync offensively at many points in the match.
“We had a couple of leads throughout the match and we let them come back every single time,” said Saraceno. “I think they just had a little more fight than we did… We’re playing well, but we need to fix the little things and stay strong throughout the whole match.”
After ball-control issues and stellar offensive pay from Davis’ Kayla Varney cost the Gauchos the first game, UCSB stormed out to a 20-11 lead in the second set. But the Aggies won 10 of the next 11 points to tie things up at 21-21. Two Saraceno kills down the stretch staved off the Aggie comeback.
UCSB started strong once again in the third set, jumping out to a 21-10 lead and out-hitting the visitors .448 to .040 to take a 2-1 lead in games. Allison Whitson and Varney were on fire early in the fourth game for the Aggies, as Whitson broke a 6-6 tie with a kill and Davis kept the lead the rest of the way.
Leah Sully served three straight points as the Gauchos went up 4-0 in the fifth, and she put away a kill from the left side a few plays later to give UCSB its 6-1 lead. The Gauchos’ second missed serve of the set followed shortly, however, and the Aggies used a 5-point run to tie things up at 7-7. The game see-sawed from there, and UCSB had a great chance to close it out after a deflating service error for the Aggies gave the hosts match point at 14-13. Whitson, however, put one away to tie things up again.
UCSB’s final match point came after a Kasey Kipp kill made it 16-15, but Whitson and Varney went back-to-back on put-aways and the Gauchos lost the final point on a hitting error.
The loss puts the Gauchos at 14-5 overall and 4-3 in the conference, while the Aggies are all alone in second place at 15-7, 6-2.
Although Gehlke was not able to attend, her parents Bob and Barbara proudly accepted flowers on her behalf and watched as a long vertical banner honoring their daughter was unfurled against the South wall of the Thunderdome. Gehlke, just 5-foot-9, is the program’s all-time kill leader and is second all-time in digs. During her four-year career, the Gauchos went 112-26. Gregory took a moment to speak to the crowd about Gehlke.
“Every time I go out and recruit, I ask if it will be the day that I find another Robbie. Guess what? I haven’t found her, so I’m gonna be around for awhile,” she said.
