MANHATTAN,
Kan. ? Five times this season, the No. 13 Oregon
volleyball team trailed an opponent by two games, and five times the Ducks were
unable to come back.
Good thing this is the NCAA
Tournament.
Oregon
pieced together a valiant and inspiring comeback on the home floor of No. 9
seed Kansas State, and advanced to the Sweet 16 for the first time in the
program's history with 3-2 (24-30, 20-30, 30-27, 36-34, 15-11) victory over the
Wildcats at Ahearn Field House.
Serving specialist sophomore
Amanda Westrick entered the fifth game, as head coach Jim Moore elected to use Bonney
Lake, Wash., native's strong
serve. It proved to be a profitable plan, as the Ducks ran off three straight
points to take a 13-9 lead. And it was only fitting that senior Karen
Waddington provided match point with a solo stuff on 11th-ranked Kansas
State's last attempt.
"The players did great," Moore said after the match. "They showed that they had great character, and they've shown it all year. W've had and awful lot of adversity and it finally paid off. They were very, very good coming down the stretch."
Oregon
(22-10) will now head to Stanford to play UCLA in the Sweet 16 on Friday, Dec.
7, with match time still to be decided. The Bruins knocked off Alabama A&M
3-0 in the first round and Clemson 3-1 in the second to head to Palo
Alto.
Kansas
State ends it season 23-9.
In game four, Oregon staved off
elimination on three separate match points, as the score was tied at each point
from 26-34. Kills from Gorana Maricic, Kristen Forristall and Sonja Newcombe the game in favor
of the Ducks.
"They (Oregon players) willed it not to happen. They willed that win....eventually you have to get over the hump, and they did. So they just willed it to happen for our side."
Newcombe led
Oregon with 22 kills on a .348 attacking percentage, and a season-high 26.0 points. The two-time Pac-10 honorable mention added a solo block and four block assists, while contributing 10 digs.
"...I didn't want to go home," Newcombe said. "We talked about emptying the tank, and I did my best to empty it as much as I could. I said I had a little more gas left for the fifth game. You could just feel the belief come back in everyone."
Junior Gorana Marcic
added 18 kills, after being held to four in the first two games.
The Ducks hit .255 in the match,
compared to Kansas State's
.314, but totaled 17.0 blocks and a match-high 74 digs, led by Katie Swoboda's
17. In fact four Oregon players;
Maricic (15), Nevena Djordjevic (11) and Newcombe (10) had double figures in
kills.
Junior Kristen Forristall led Oregon
with a season-high nine blocks, the most any Duck player has produced this
season, while Waddington added seven. Forristall also matched her season high of nine kills, and set a new high with 13.5 points.
After having an off night against Missouri
State in the first round, freshman
Heather Meyers set a new season high with 19 kills, hitting a team-best .432.
Djordjevic, who partnered with Rachel Morris to run the offense, set a new season high with 46 assists. Morris' tally of 30 was also a season high.
Kansas
State was led Roita Liliom's
match-high 27 kills (.400), as well as 16 from Big 12 Newcomer of the Year
Natalya Korobkova. Libero Angie Lastra had a match-high 20 digs.
In the first game, Liliom put
down the first two kills, giving the Wildcats a lead in game one they would
never relinquish.
Oregon
struggled as Maricic did not record her first kill until the 12-16 mark. The
Ducks trailed by as many as six (16-22) after a Kansas
State block. Led by Meyers, Oregon
chipped away at the Wildcats' large advantage, recording four straight points.
Meyers had two kills and a block assist with Forristall, while Maricic added a
kill as well to bring the score to 20-22, but Oregon
would get no closer.
The second game (20-30) was more
of the same, with Kansas State
taking an early lead. Despite tie scores at 4-4 and 5-5, Oregon
trailed the entire game. A three-point run brought the Ducks within 15-16, but
the Wildcats ended the match on a 9-1 run.
After two games, Kansas
State was hitting .437 compared to Oregon's
.210. The Ducks had 14 attacking errors and six service errors. The Wildcats
had 10.5 blocks after two and 30 digs.
Newcombe led Oregon
with nine kills at the break.
Oregon
took its first lead of the match, 2-1, after a Kansas
State attack error in the third
game. The Ducks built on that lead, taking a five-point advantage at 14-9,
after two Kansas State
attacking errors and a block from Maricic and Enesi. But relentless, Kansas
State climbed back into the game
with five straight points to tie it at 14. As part of a 7-2 run, the Wildcats
eventually took a 17-16 lead.
But finally Maricic began to
breakdown the Wildcats defense. Held to just four kills in the first two games
combined, she put down five in game three alone, including accounting for three
of the Ducks' last five points. A Newcombe strike was good for game point.
QUICK
QUACKS: The Ducks are now 3-5 all-time in the NCAA Tournament...Oregon's
22 wins are its most since 1986...Oregon
is 1-1 against UCLA this season suffering a 3-1 loss in Los
Angeles on Oct. 11, and issuing revenge by way of a
three-game sweep at Mac Court on Nov. 9...it was Maricic's 13th double-double of the year, Necombe's ninth and Djordjevic's fifth...the Ducks set new single-match season highs in points (101.0), kills (82), block assists (32) and assists (80)...Oregon is now 4-8 against ranked opponents...Oregon will play UCLA in the Stanford Regional, and the Cardinal will play Cal POly.
