November 8, 2012
Highlanders 3 – Anteaters 1
The UC Riverside women’s volleyball team won 3-1 at UC Irvine Thursday night. Led by Ashley Cox’s career-high 28 kills, UCR earned its first conference victory of the season.
The first set went back and forth with kills being scored and both teams coming back from deficits. Megan Reza ended the first set with a kill assisted by Emily Borges. This put Riverside up, 1-0.
The second set was played in a similar fashion. After being up 15-10, the Highlanders gave up six straight points to UC Irvine, trailing 16-15. Both teams provided offense and were tied at 21-21. Irvine led 24-23 with an opportunity to close out the second set with a kill, but passing and serving errors gave UCR the win on the second set, 26-23 and put the team up 2-0.
The Highlanders played into a couple of ties in the third set but UC Irvine controlled the third, winning 25-19.
The Highlanders won the fourth and decisive set. Ashley Cox’s kills led Riverside. She had some help from Megan Reza and Amanda Vialpando with game-clinching kills. The Highlanders went on to win final set, 25-21.
Vialpando totaled up 13 kills while Megan Reza contributed with eight kills. UC Riverside finished with 58 kills and 71 digs in total. In a game where there were 36 ties and 15 lead changes, the offensive output by the Highlanders came through in tight game situations. Their team attack in sideouts throughout the whole game was over 50 percent. UC Riverside executed on 58 percent of their sideouts in the first set, 54 percent in the second, 60 in the third and 71 in the fourth.
November 10, 2012
49ers 3 – Highlanders 0
Coming off of their first conference win on Thursday, the UC Riverside women’s volleyball team got swept by the Long Beach State 49ers on Saturday night, 3-0.
The first set was close early with both teams exchanging points. They were tied five times and the lead switched three times. Long Beach State scored five straight points after taking the lead at 7-6 and creating another run that gave them a 19-9 lead. The Highlanders were not able to stop the 49ers’ attack and lost the first set 25-14.
The Highlanders kept the second set close, being down just 11-8, but Long Beach State scored an array of points to lead 18-12. Five more points were scored by the Highlanders but they were unable to overcome the deficit and lost the second set 25-17.
In the third set, UC Riverside came out with the mentality to win. The Highlanders were leading 23-20 after 11 ties. UCR could not close out the third set, however, as Long Beach State connected on five straight points to take the set and the victory 25-23 (3-0).
Ashley Cox led the team with 13 kills and 14 digs. Amanda Vialpando produced 11 kills. In terms of sideouts, UCR went 12-25 connecting on 47 percent in the first set. The second set was not much of an improvement as the Highlanders went 11-24 resulting in 45 percent. UC Riverside was able to score 23 points, going 14-25 and connecting on 56 percent of their attacks.
UCR is now 7-21 overall and 1-13 in conference play. After a week on the road, the Highlanders will be back home as they will play the UC Santa Barbara Gauchos on Friday, Nov. 16 and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo on Saturday, Nov. 17.
