While Pacific head coach Greg Gibbons helped recruit seniors Charlene DeHoog, Kasey Kipp and Dana Vargas to UCSB’s women’s volleyball team, he was not going to just let them run away with a gimme victory in their final home match at the Thunderdome.
Gibbons, who served as UCSB’s Associate Head Coach for the previous four seasons before taking over at Pacific, saw his young Tigers team defeat the more experienced Gauchos on Saturday night, 23-25, 25-20, 23-25, 25-20, 15-12.
It was the final home match of the career for DeHoog, Kipp and Vargas but they were unable to stop a pair of lethal Pacific hitters as Samantha Misa tallied 24 kills and Jennifer Sanders had 22 to lead UOP.
DeHoog had 13 kills and 19 digs for the Gauchos, who fall to 15-13 overall and 9-6 in the Big West. Kipp had eight kills and seven total blocks while Vargas had 46 assists and seven digs.
Stacey Schmidt led the Gauchos with 14 kills while Kara Sherrard had 10 kills and 15 digs. Chelsey Lowe had a career-high 30 digs for Santa Barbara.
In the fourth set, UCSB rallied from a 13-9 deficit to take a 14-13 lead on an attack error by Pacific. However the scrappy Tigers scored six of the next seven points for a 19- 15 lead and then cruised to the win, grabbing momentum for the fifth set.
UCSB started the season 5-0 in five-set matches, but have now dropped two of its past three.
Trailing 6-4, Gibbons called a timeout and his team responded with four straight points to take a lead it wouldn’t relinquish. The Gauchos got as close as 13-11, but another Pacific timeout helped the team regroup.
A block at the net gave Pacific match point and after a long rally brought the Gauchos to 14-12 on a Tigers hitting error, Misa’s 24th kill of the night finished the Gauchos.
With one match left – Saturday, Nov. 20 at UC Riverside – UCSB will try to get more than 15 victories for the 28th time in the past 30 seasons.
