LONG BEACH – A weekend which saw the UCSB women’s volleyball team start in first place, saw them finish with a pair of losses and end the weekend in fourth place. And so it goes in the topsy-turvy Big West Conference.
The Gauchos were swept for the second straight night, this time losing 25-20, 25-19, 25-23 to Long Beach State on Saturday after falling in three the previous evening to Cal State Fullerton.
Santa Barbara drops to 13-11 overall and 7-4 in the Big West while Long Beach State improves to 17-6, 7-3.
The top half of the Big West currently looks like this – Cal State Fullerton, 8-2; Long Beach State, 7-3; Cal Poly 8-4; UCSB 7-4; UC Davis, 7-4; Pacific 7-4.
“We definitely played much better than Friday,” UCSB head coach Kathy Gregory said. “Offensively we weren’t as sharp as we could have been. Our all-around intensity was better, but offensively, we were struggling.”
UCSB had another difficult night on the offensive end, hitting just .158 for the match and again had just one player reach double figures in kills. Charlene DeHoog had 12 kills for the Gauchos while Lily Lopez and Stacey Schmidt had seven each.
Tied at 18-18 in the first set, Long Beach State rattled off five of the next six points to take a 23-19 lead.
In the second game, UCSB played close in the early going, tied at 11-11, before the 49ers won the next five points, withstood a small rally from the Gauchos and then turned a 20-16 lead into a victory on a pair of kills, a service ace and a block.
UCSB did not concede the final set, though. A see-saw battle eventually had the 49ers ahead 22-17 before a Lopez kill, a pair of blocks from DeHoog and Kasey Kipp and a DeHoog kill brought the Gauchos to 23-22.
However, Long Beach State was able to hold off the Gauchos and take the match.
Kara Sherrard had 12 digs and six kills while Dana Vargas had 32 assists and five digs and kills. Kelly Heenan led UCSB with 15 digs.
UCSB returns home for its longest homestand of the season with four matches, beginning on Tuesday, Nov. 2 vs. UC Riverside.
