Powered by a career night from senior Dana Vargas, the UCSB women’s volleyball team defeated UC Irvine, 25-20, 25-13, 23-25, 25-20 on Friday night at the Thunderdome.
Santa Barbara improves to 12-9 overall and 6-2 in the Big West while Irvine falls to 5-16, 1-7. UCSB is now in sole possession of second place in the Big West. Long Beach State, at 5-2, and Cal State Fullerton, at 6-1, play on Saturday night.
Almost reaching a triple-double, Vargas had 48 assists to go with a career-high nine kills and eight digs. Stacey Schmidt led the Gauchos with 15 kills and Kelly Heenan had 22 digs.
Behind the play of Vargas, Schmidt and Lily Lopez, the Gauchos took the first game. Lopez had five of her nine kills in the first set while Schmidt had four putaways and Vargas 13 assists. UCSB was down 12-10 in the first until Schmidt and Lopez tied it on consecutive kills as the teams then traded points. UCSB finally broke away on a pair of Lopez kills combined with two UCI errors to eventually claim the first set.
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In the second game UCSB torched the Anteaters to the tune of a .378 team hitting percentage while UCI hit just .105 after a meager .070 clip in the first game. Schmidt had four more kills in the second set while Vargas had 13 more assists.
The third set, all season, has been a problem for the Gauchos and it proved to be so again on Friday. The Gauchos are now just 7-14 in the third set this season after dropping it to UCI on Friday. Santa Barbara trailed 9-4 early in the third before eventually pulling to 15-apiece on one of Charlene DeHoog’s nine kills. However the Gauchos led 23-20 and a pair of attack errors, a UCI service ace and kills from Mary Carls and Larissa Nordyke ended the set.
Channeling the energy from the third set, UC Irvine went on a quick run to open the fourth game, jumping out to a 7-1 advantage. Yet, like UCI had done to the Gauchos the previous set, UCSB returned the favor.
Helped by five straight points, the Gauchos finally caught – and passed – Irvine for a 17-16 lead and eventually took a 21-18 lead on an Anteater attack error. Two straight attack errors and a Kara Sherrard kill (one of her 11) finally gave the Gauchos the victory.
UCSB continues its homestand with a match at 7 pm on Saturday vs. Cal State Northridge.
