BELLINGHAM, Wash - The RV San Francisco State volleyball team opened its season at the Western Washington Invitational with a match against #22 Central Washington. After taking the first set 25-20, the Gators fell behind with 19-25 and 20-25 set losses. A thrilling 31-29 set four win pushed the match to a fifth set but the Gators fell just short of taking the match with a 15-13 loss.
 

By The Numbers

 
 

• Central Washington was selected to finish first in the GNAC Conference.
• Tamiya Wilson led all players with 24 kills. Izzy Issak had 20 and Aidan Goodrich had 17.
• The Gators hit .457 and .354 percent in the sets they won but only .152, .188 and .063 in sets they lost.
• The Gators edged the Wildcats in blocks 10-9 with Garza and Katie Parker recording five and four respectively.

 

How It Happened

 

Gators opened set one on a 5-1 run and held a cushion the rest of the way. Up 20-14, Central Washington started to make the Gators sweat a little with a 6-2 run to come within two. But Wilson responded on Central Washington's next serve with a kill and the Gators closed out the set with two more straight points. Wilson finished the first set with 10 kills off 13 attempts.
 
The two teams played close throughout the first half of set two but a 8-2 run by Central Washington put them up 8-2. Isaak tried to get the Gators back into it with three straight kills to cut the deficit to 22-19 but the Wildcats defended the net well and picked up three straight points to take set two.
 
The Wildcats served two straight aces to start a 4-0 run in the third set before Isaak broke up the run. But the Gators couldn't get much going on offense as Coach Hoffman called an early time-out down 8-2. The Wildcats held the advantage the rest of the way to take set three.
 
Similar to the set before, the Gators blew an early timeout down 5-1. The Gators took their first lead of the set with three straight kills followed by an attack error to go up 13-12. Facing a set loss down 24-21, a service error gave the ball back to the Gators and Garza had a hand in back-to-back blocks to tie the set up. After going back and forth, the Gators landed a pair of kills tied 29-29 to force a fifth set.

Gators came back within one during the fifth set after being down by as much as five but never could take the lead in the final set and dropped the match.
 

Up Next

The Gators wrap up the WWU Invitational with a match against #7 MSU Denver at 11am and host school RV Western Washington at 7 p.m. on Sept 7. Live stats are available at sfstategators.com/livestats_vb and fans can watch here