SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — The No. 21 San Francisco State volleyball team clinched a sport in the NCAA National Championship with a 3-1 win (21-25, 25-19, 25-23, 25-22) over No. 7 Angelo State.
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- The Gators extend their record to 26-6. Angelo State ends its season at 32-3.
- Like yesterday, the Gators were led by a player who set a new-career high in kills. Anastacia Garza had 19, followed by Aidan Goodrich with 16, Izzy Issak with 15 and Tamiya Wilson with 10.
- SF State had 81 digs on the evening with Brianna DeBoer recording 23 to lead the Gators. Issak and Wilson each had 15, followed by Asia Arbaugh with 11.
- Arbaugh had two aces on the night to reach 50 on the season.
- Kimberly DeBoer had 53 assists on the day in addition to 10 digs, an ace and a block.
- Madi Parrish led Angelo State with 14 kills.
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Anastacia Garza's seven kills through the Gators first 13 points kept the Gators in set one. Down 23-19,
Aidan Goodrich landed a kill and recorded a block to get the Gators back to with two. Wilson's serve went into the net and Goodrich's attack on the next serve was blocked.
After the Gators took a 5-1 lead to open set three, they saw their lead quickly vanish coming out of an Angelo State time-out. Down by one, Goodrich connected on back-to-back kills and an Angelo attack error gave them the two-point lead. Madi Parrish landed a kill coming out of the timeout, but a Garza kill and ace from
Asia Arbaugh got the Gators back to a multi-point lead. A pair of service errors by Angelo State kept them from coming back and Garza silenced them with a kill.
The Gators landed kills on eight of their first nine points as they led 9-4 before the first Angelo State timeout. Angelo State came back to take a 17-15 lead but a service error gave the Gators the serve back and back-to-back attack errors from Angelo State gave SF State the lead. Up 23-22, the Gators initially got the point to get to set point, but Angelo State was able to reverse the call on the official review to make it a 23-23 match. Goodrich delivered to get the Gators to set point and an attack error from Evelyn Torres handed the Gators the second set win.
Like the set before, the Gators went up 9-4 but did not take the foot off the pedal and led by as many as nine points in the fourth set. Angelo State slowly cut the deficit and made it a three-point set down 19-16. Coach
Matt Hoffman immediately called a time-out and the Gators responded with kills from Issak and Wilson. An attack error by Parrish got the Gators to match point at 24-20. Angelo State got two kills to get within two of the lead but Goodrich landed the final blow to send the Gators to the National Championship.
The Gators will play Lynn University Saturday, December 14 at 3 PST p.m./ 5 CST p.m. The game can be streamed on ESPN+ with more updates at sfstategators.com
