SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco State women's volleyball team had its most inconsistent match of the season, a 3-1 (25-23, 25-16, 25-17, 25-18) loss to visiting Cal Poly Pomona on Saturday inside the Main Gym at Don Nasser Family Plaza.
SF State (4-6/0-2 CCAA) rallied back from an early deficit to take the lead midway through set one but the Broncos (5-5/1-1 CCAA) defense met the Gators for back-to-back blocks that knotted the set back at 17 apiece. The Broncos took the next three points to make it 20-17, though the Gators kept pace and pushed the score back to 22-22 but Cal Poly Pomona pulled away with the last two points of the set.
SF State started set two with a 1-0 lead thanks to a different CPP player than listed on the lineup sheet entering as libero. However, that didn't deter the Broncos, who mounted a 7-2 start despite the mixup. The Gators pulled within a point, 9-8, but a 5-0 Broncos lead opened up the set and helped CPP to a 2-0 match lead.
CPP opened set three with another huge run to take an 8-1 lead. The Gators played their best with their backs agains the wall and showed flashes of the team that battled for every point against No. 16 Cal State Bernardino a night ago. The Gators came from 10 down to take the 27-25, thanks in large part to
Christine Johnson, who served half a dozen times during a 7-0 Gators run.
Olivia Tabron put the Gators on the board with back-to-back kills to force a fourth set.
In set four, the Gators tallied three consecutive points for an 11-9 lead but the Broncos responded with a five-point run for a 14-11 advantage that forced SF State Head Coach
Matt Hoffman to call timeout. On the next play, the Gators argued an attack had been touched but the Broncos extended the run to seven points before
Brenna Dougherty's kill stopped the run. The Gators were unable to catch up after that.
"How do we bottle up last night's performance, which resulted in a loss? You bottle that up against any team in the conference and you have much better results," said Hoffman. "That set three serving performance by Christine was the since I've been here, and Olivia had an amazing third set."
Dougherty, who matched a career-high 17 kills in Friday's loss, led SF State with 12 kills.
Christine Johnson added 10 and
Olivia Tabron had a season-high eight kills, five of which came in the third set. Libero
Jocelyn Rodriguez did her part with a perfect passing percentage and a team-high 11 digs.
Christine Johnson and
Emily Johns each had three service aces, and Johns added five digs in the loss.
CPP was led by Andrea Bosnic's 13 kills. Jenna Golsberry added 10 in the victory.
SF State hosts Sonoma State on Wednesday, Sept. 20 at 7 p.m. Live video and stats will be available at
sfstategators.com. In-game updates will be available on Twitter at
@sfstate_wvb.
