TURLOCK, Calif. - The San Francisco State volleyball team went back and forth in the opening round of the CCAA Tournament with fourth-seed and tournament hosts Stanislaus State. The Gators won 3-2 (16-25, 25-20, 23-25, 25-22, 15-9) to advance to the CCAA semifinals.
- The Gators improve to 12-14 on the season. They have reached the CCAA semifinals in four of the last five seasons.
- Grace Witcher led all players with 22 kills. Tamiya Wilson and Aidan Goodrich also reached double figures with 17 and 15 respectively.
- Lilly Rix added eight kills and finished with a .636 hitting percentage.
- Witcher added her 52nd ace of the season, tied for third most in a season.
- The Gators had eight aces on the night but also finished with 19 service errors.
- Melanie Hewlett had a career-high 54 assists.
Stanislaus started on an 8-1 lead with the only point for the Gators a service error by the Warriors. Wilson landed a kill out of the timeout to spark the offense, but the Gators only could get back within five of the lead.
Gators took a slim 12-10 lead before Stanislaus called a timeout. The Warriors came out of the break and went on a 6-1 run to force the Gators to take a break to regroup. Down 18-14, Wilson had back-to-back kills,
Alana Larson landed an ace and
Aidan Goodrich landed a kill to tie the set up. Goodrich bounced an attack off the blocker to retake the lead 20-19 and force Stanislaus to use their second time-out. Stan got the next point out of the time-out but the Gators scored the next five to close out the second set.
After an early lead, the Warriors went on a 7-1 run to lead 12-10 in the third set. The Gators called time-out down 16-14. Witcher had three straight kills to retake the lead for the Gators at 17-16. Stanislaus used a 5-0 run to reach set point at 24-21. Wilson had back-to-back kills to keep the set going but the Warriors ended the set with a kill.
Down 18-15, a couple of errors by Stanislaus helped the Gators tie the fourth set and Witcher gave the Gators the lead at 20-19. Stanislaus used their second timeout with the Gators up 22-19. The Gators reached set point up 24-19 before a service error gave Stanislaus the serve back. Stanislaus came back two of the lead to force Gators to call time out. After a long rally coming out of the timeout, Witcher landed her 20
th kill to force a fifth set.
Witcher, the conference leader in aces, landed an ace in the corner to start the fifth set. The Gators would lead 7-1 before Stanislaus could get some momentum going. The Gators reached match point up 14-7 and a couple of attack errors by Witcher allowed Stanislaus to stay in the match but a service error gave the Gators their final point.
The Gators play #1 seed and regular season champions Cal Poly Pomona on November 21 at 5:30 pm. Live stats are available at
sfstategators.com/livestats_vb and fans can watch at home on FloCollege.
