VB | Saint Mary’s Suffers Defeat against Ranked Toreros

Sunday, February 7

San Diego, CA

1:00 pm

Saint Mary's College of California

1-4,1-4WCC

San Diego

1-0,1-0WCC

Saint Mary's (CA)

San Diego

Photo by: Saint Mary's Athletics / Tod Fierner

VB | Saint Mary’s Suffers Defeat against Ranked Toreros

2/7/2021 3:20:00 PM | Women's Volleyball

Box Score

SAN DIEGO — Saint Mary's Volleyball returned to Southern California for the second time in three weeks to begin the 2021 spring season. The Gaels were in action against #21 San Diego, playing in their first match of the season due to COVID-19 protocols. There was little rust for the Toreros, who came out of the gates hot and shut the Gaels attack down all afternoon en route to a three-set sweep (25-14, 25-22, 25-16). Saint Mary's fell to 1-4 with the defeat on Sunday afternoon.

SECONDS ARE STRONG
The Gaels have shown all season that their ability to adjust after the first set has been on point. That was the case Sunday in set two yet again, as the Gaels opened up the second set with an 8-3 lead over the Toreros. Saint Mary's took advantage of some sloppy attacking from San Diego early, using a service error and four attack errors to take a 5-0 run early padding that advantage. Trinity Durfee got the eighth point for the Gaels, but after that San Diego went on an 8-0 run to take the lead. Later in the set, Elena Baka picked up back-to-back kills that tied the set at 20-20, but the Toreros closed it out.

TURBULENT ATTACK
The Gaels were at their best in the second set, when they attacked at a 31.2% clip, their best mark of the afternoon. Things were a bit rockier in the first and third sets, where the Gaels hit at a negative percentage in the first set, and under 10% in the third. Chandler Cowell wound up being the Gaels leader in attack percentage, and in kills (20.6%, 9 kills). By comparison, the Toreros hit above 25% in all three sets, and had five individuals who attacked at over 25% for the match.

AMONG OTHER NUMBERS
Five Gaels registered kills on Saturday: Cowell (9), Baka (8), Jennifer "Boo" Laird (4), Durfee (3), and Hawley Harrer (2)…Ella Sandt took over as the Gaels primary setter in the final two sets and wound up leading the team with 19 assists…while the Gaels did not record a solo block on Saturday, Laird led the team with two assisted blocks, while Sandt and Alosina Thompson had the other assisted blocks.

BROWNING BITES
"San Diego is a great team with great coaching and even with members of their team and coaching staff unable to participate today, they took it to us. We never established any type of rhythm. A lot of that is due to San Diego's good defensive performance, but most of that is on us. We didn't have it today and there's no good reason why we shouldn't have played much better." – head coach, Rob Browning.

UP NEXT
The Gaels and Toreros will run it back again on Monday afternoon, with first serve once again scheduled for 1:00 pm. Following the series finale, the Gaels will return to action on the following Sunday-Monday as they head to Spokane to take on the Zags, beginning on February 14.

#GaelsRise