MORAGA, Calif. — After dropping both matches in their conference opening week, Saint Mary's Volleyball (4-7, 0-2 WCC) will look for WCC win number one of 2024 at San Francisco (8-5, 1-0 WCC). The Gaels picked up their first conference win over the Dons last season in San Francisco, going on to sweep their neighbors to the west, and will look to do the same this year.
THE DETAILS
Saint Mary's Gaels at San Francisco Dons
Thursday, October 3 at 7 PM
War Memorial at the Sobrato Center – San Francisco
WATCH |
LIVE STATS
PRECISE ON THE ATTACK
After opening the season with four straight 20+ error matches, Saint Mary's has cleaned up their act, with seven straight matches with 17 or fewer attack errors, including six in which the Gaels have hit 0.230 or better. This has helped Saint Mary's climb from hitting at 0.204 through their first two matches, to 0.226, where they currently stand now, ranked fourth in the WCC. True freshman Tessa Schouten leads SMC hitters with a 0.253 attack percentage, with Genevieve Bane not far behind at 0.243. Kaliko Kealoha rounds out the top three for Saint Mary's, hitting at 0.240.
ABOUT THE DONS
The San Francisco Dons are off to their best start under the direction of fourth year Head Coach Diogo Silva, opening up their campaign at 8-5. Coach Silva's previous best start was 7-6 through the first 13 matches in and finished at 14-15, the highest win total in his short tenure. The Dons opened conference play on Saturday with a five set win over rival Santa Clara in Santa Clara and come into this one riding a three game winning streak. One of the big reasons for the Dons early success has been their retention of last year's squad, returning Abby Wadas, Aylen Ayub, Maria Petkova, Astrid Puig, Hayden Goodman and Lindsay Oldendorf, all key contributors from last year's team. That group paired with a couple of outstanding transfers in the forms of Jolei Akima (Cal Poly) and Michalina Rola (Cal Baptist) make the Dons quite the formidable foe. On paper, this should be a close matchup, with the Dons and Gaels both sweeping Air Force and Seattle, both being swept by San Jose State, and both taking Cal to five sets. All-time SMC leads the series 49-28, but is just two games over 0.500 when playing on the Hilltop.
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