University of Oregon
1-0
New Mexico State
0-1
No. 11 Ducks Dispatch NMSU in Season Opener
08/30/08 | Women's Volleyball
* A boxscore and play-by-play is available in the LINKS box to the right.
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. ? The No. 11 University of Oregon women's volleyball team opened its 41st season with a four-set victory Friday night against No. 23 New Mexico State in the State Farm Illini Classic at the University of Illinois' Huff Hall.
The Ducks won 25-19, 25-23, 22-25, 25-17 to cruise to its fourth straight season-opening win under head coach Jim Moore, and its sixth overall vs. a top-25 team under the fourth-year mentor.
Sophomore outside hitter Heather Meyers paced the team in kills (12) and hitting (.417). All-America senior Gorana Maricic added 10 kills (.286) and juniors Neticia Enesi and Sonja Newcombe each had nine kills with Enesi finishing with an impressive .438 hitting mark.
“Anytime you play the first game of the season, you're dealing with a lot of things,” Meyers said. “It's an emotional experience getting on the court again. We knew they were a good team, and losing that third game was unfortunate and made us want to prove in the fourth game that we were better.”
Enesi also led the team in blocks (8), and senior Kristen Forristall added five. Meyers and Forristall tied for the team best in services aces (2).
“It was exciting to get back on the court,” Enesi said. “I wasn't keeping track of how many kills I had, just doing my best to help the team. Once we got in the flow, things started going our way easier in the fourth game.”
Junior setter Nevena Djordjevic came up with 38 assists and a career high six block assists that improved on her former best of two that she registered three times in 2007. Senior libero Katie Swoboda posted 23 digs, and Newcombe added 10.
“It was fun to be able to play up front more,” Djordjevic said. “I've not had the chance to play a part in defense that way before, and it's something that should happen more this year. Setting-wise, I played OK, and I'm looking forward to playing better Saturday.”
In the first set, UO started off sluggish and it wasn't until an officials' reversal of an NMSU illegal rotation call helped put NMSU up 11-8. The ensuing discussion afterwards between coaches and referees gave the Ducks a chance to regroup and extra incentive to respond with a 7-1 run and pull ahead, 15-12 - a stretch that included three straight service points by junior Amanda Westrick. Afterwards, the Ducks added a 7-3 run to go up, 22-12, on a kill by Maricic, en route to a 25-19 final score. Overall in the first game, Enesi had four kills on five attempts. Meyers also had four kills, and last year's service ace leader added her first of 2008.
The Duck opened the second set with a 4-0 lead en route to a 5-1 advantage before NMSU responded with a run of its own to drawn within 11-10, then took its first lead, 18-17. An Oregon timeout saw another NMSU point on a service ace, but the Ducks made up the 19-17 deficit with an 8-4 run to with the match, 25-23, thanks to another Meyers ace, and kills by Forristall and Maricic. Forristall, Maricic and Meyers each had three kills in the set.
Trying to prevent the sweep, NMSU surged out in the third set to a 10-4 lead. The Aggies still led 13-7 before the Ducks responded with a 10-4 run to tie the match, 17-17, with two kills late in that run by senior hitter Marija Milosevic ? part of four for her that game. After an 18-18 tie, NMSU rattled off a 6-1 run to lead 24-19, then weathered three straight Duck points on services by Meyers to win the set, 25-22, on a kill by Kelli Goodan.
A more composed Duck squad came out in game four ready to quell the Aggie tide. After NMSU led 2-0, UO rattled off an 18-8 run to lead 18-10, then continued its drive towards to victory with an impressive unset kill by Enesi from an errant NMSU pass and a service ace by Swoboda.
“We looked tentative at times, but we eventually pulled it together,” head coach Jim Moore said. “Heather (Meyers) played really well, and Neticia (Enesi) gave us a big boost early offensively and hit .800 in the first game. The loss in game three was largely because of my mistake on the lineup card that put our hitters in the wrong spots in the rotation. NMSU sensed that and took advantage of that emotionally. I thought our team showed good confidence in the fourth set and really played well.”
For New Mexico State, Lindsey Yon ended with a match high 17 kills (.244), while Amber Simpson added 10 kills and a .474 mark. Krystal Torres also led the two teams in service aces (4) and had a Aggie best 17 digs.
Looking ahead, the Ducks, ranked 10th and 11th in the preseason Volleyball Magazine and AVCA polls, respectively, return for their final two matches of the tournament Saturday and play North Carolina at 10 a.m. Pacific Time and host Illinois at 3 p.m. PT. The www.fightingillini.com website will have live stats available at the
http://fightingillini.cstv.com/sports/w-volley/spec-rel/state-farm-classic-08.html?DB_OEM_ID=500 URL address, and viewers can also pay $6.95 for a monthly subscription fee to watch a videocast of the match at the same address.
QUICK QUACKS: Fourth-year head coach Jim Moore raised his overall record to 52-41 ... Oregon's non-conference record under Moore is 33-2 ... Oregon staked four wins vs. top-25 teams in 2007 vs. then-No. 20 Ohio State (3-0), then-No. 6 USC (3-1), then-No. 9 UCLA (3-0), then-No. 11 Kansas State (3-2) and another in '06 at then-No. 8 California (3-1). ... Friday's win raised UO's all-time record to 3-2 vs. NMSU with their previous most recent meeting in 2001 (a Duck win - 30-22, 31-29, 30-23). ... Among other tourney opponents, Oregon is 1-1 vs. North Carolina, and in its last contest UNC beat the Ducks in 2003 (21-30, 14-30, 21-30) in the season opener. ... UO is 1-1 vs. Illinois all-time with the Illini winning their last meeting in 1987 (8-15, 15-12, 10-15, 2-15).
BOXSCORE
Volleyball Box Score
The Automated ScoreBook
#11 Oregon vs #23 New Mexico State (Aug 29, 2008 at Champaign, Ill.)
Oregon | ATTACK |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF| BLOCK |GEN
## Name GP| K E TA PCT| A| SA SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
2 Enesi, Neticia...... 4| 9 2 16 .438| 1| 0 0| 0| 1| 0 8 0| 0
3 Maricic, Gorana..... 4| 10 2 28 .286| 0| 0 1| 2| 4| 0 1 0| 0
6 Newcombe, Sonja..... 4| 9 1 32 .250| 3| 0 0| 0| 10| 0 2 0| 1
7 Djordjevic, Nevena.. 4| 1 0 7 .143| 38| 0 0| 0| 7| 0 6 1| 0
10 Meyers, Heather..... 4| 12 2 24 .417| 3| 2 3| 1| 6| 0 3 0| 0
12 Forristall, Kristen. 4| 7 4 19 .158| 0| 2 0| 0| 1| 0 5 0| 0
1 Westrick, Amanda.... 3| 0 0 0 .000| 0| 0 1| 2| 1| 0 0 0| 0
9 Swoboda, Katie...... 4| 0 0 0 .000| 0| 1 0| 3| 23| 0 0 0| 0
15 Milosevich, Marija.. 2| 4 4 11 .000| 1| 0 0| 0| 4| 0 1 0| 0
TEAM................ | | | | 1| | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Totals.............. 4| 52 15 137 .270| 46| 5 5| 9| 57| 0 26 1| 1
TEAM ATTACK PER GAME TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 13.0
Game K E TA Pct
1 15 2 34 .382 GAME SCORES 1 2 3 4 TEAM RECORDS
2 12 4 39 .205 Oregon.............. (3) 25 25 22 25 1-0
3 13 6 40 .175 New Mexico State.... (1) 19 23 25 17 0-1
4 12 3 24 .375
New Mexico State | ATTACK |SET| SERVE |SRV|DEF| BLOCK |GEN
## Name GP| K E TA PCT| A| SA SE| RE|DIG|BS BA BE|BHE
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
3 BIRMINGHAM, Erin.... 4| 6 2 13 .308| 0| 1 2| 0| 5| 0 2 0| 0
10 DEVRIES, Jennah..... 4| 0 0 0 .000| 25| 1 1| 0| 7| 0 0 0| 0
23 WOODS, Whitney...... 4| 7 5 24 .083| 0| 0 0| 1| 3| 0 3 2| 0
27 YON, Lindsey........ 4| 17 6 45 .244| 0| 1 2| 0| 11| 0 1 0| 0
28 ALTERMATT, Krista... 4| 8 9 29 -.034| 1| 1 0| 1| 12| 0 1 0| 0
31 SIMPSON, Amber...... 4| 10 1 19 .474| 0| 0 0| 0| 1| 0 4 0| 0
1 TORRES, Krystal..... 4| 0 0 0 .000| 5| 4 2| 1| 17| 0 0 0| 0
4 PHILLIPS, Whitney... 1| 0 0 1 .000| 0| 0 1| 1| 0| 0 0 1| 0
6 BRENNAN, Kelsey..... 2| 0 0 0 .000| 0| 0 1| 0| 0| 0 0 1| 0
8 BROWN, Bryanna...... 1| 0 0 1 .000| 0| 0 0| 0| 0| 0 0 0| 0
13 GOODAN, Kelli....... 4| 5 2 14 .214| 0| 0 0| 0| 1| 0 1 2| 0
15 GINTANT, Alyssa..... 4| 0 1 1-1.000| 17| 1 1| 0| 6| 0 0 0| 0
TEAM................ | | | | 1| | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Totals.............. 4| 53 26 147 .184| 48| 9 10| 5| 63| 0 12 6| 0
TEAM ATTACK PER GAME TOTAL TEAM BLOCKS: 6.0
Game K E TA Pct
1 13 6 38 .184 Site: Champaign, Ill. (Huff Hall)
2 15 9 42 .143 Date: Aug 29, 2008 Attend: 200 Time: 1:53
3 13 5 42 .190 Referees: Rick Welch, Art Bowden
4 12 6 25 .240 State Farm Illini Classic Game One
- www.GoDucks.com ?
