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Volleyball Hits Road Looking To Improve Win Total
Oct. 14, 2002
Gonzaga Volleyball Release (Week 8)
2002 Gonzaga Volleyball Statistics
FRIDAY - October 18
SATURDAY - October 19
GONZAGA BULLDOGS: 3-14, 1-3 WCC THIS WEEK'S ACTION: Gonzaga returns to the road this weekend hoping to build on the team's first WCC win of the season. GU will face Saint Mary's on Friday night before a Saturday night match at San Diego. It will be Gonzaga's second WCC road trip of the season, the Bulldogs going 0-2 on their first road swing through the Los Angeles area. GU has not won at Saint Mary's since the end of the 1998 season and the Bulldogs are winless in their last ten trips to San Diego. Gonzaga does have some confidence heading into the weekend as they played well against No. 14 Santa Clara and won a five-game thriller over San Francisco. LAST WEEK'S RECAP: Gonzaga put one up in the win column on Saturday night as the Bulldogs claimed their first WCC victory of the season during a five-game win over San Francisco. Christina Davis hammered home a career-high 26 kills and the Bulldogs compiled their second best hitting night of the season in the win. On Friday night Gonzaga started slow before playing very competitive volleyball against No. 14 Santa Clara. GU won the third game of the match in convincing fashion, 30-21, and was close to pushing the match to a fifth game as they were tied at 26, before falling 30-27. Davis finished the weekend with a team-high 43 kills and 25 digs.
ZAGS DRAW BIG WEEKEND CROWD: For the second time this season Gonzaga played a home match in front of over 800 fans in Martin Centre. 841 fans turned out for Friday night's match against 14th-ranked Santa Clara. The largest home crowd of the season was 972 against then No. 23 Eastern Washington. SAINT MARY'S GAELS (5-10, 1-2 WCC): Gonzaga looks to garner its second win of the season when the Bulldogs travel to Saint Mary's on Friday night. The Gaels are tied with Gonzaga and Portland with one win each in league play after the first two weekends of action. Both teams are under the direction of new coaching staffs and the Gaels have lost four straight matches after winning their league opener over San Francisco. Gonzaga leads the all-time series 19-12 with the team's splitting their series last year, each school winning on its home court. Lindsey Bogason leads SMC with 3.2 kills per game while Stacey O'Connor leads the WCC with 1.60 blocks per game. SAN DIEGO TOREROS (16-4, 2-1 WCC): San Diego hosts Gonzaga on Saturday night as one of the hottest teams in the West Coast Conference. The Toreros currently have a league-high 16 wins and have won eight of their last nine, the only loss coming at Santa Clara during the opening weekend of WCC action. Last week they easily dispatched Saint Mary's in three games. Noel Frohman and Devon Forster are the Toreros big guns with each player averaging over 4 kills a game. San Diego leads the all-time series 21-9 and has won 15 straight contests over the Zags. Gonzaga came close to ending that streak last season as they took San Diego to five games before falling 15-9 in the final game at home. DAVIS SETS NEW CAREER HIGH: Sophomore outside hitter Christina Davis finished off a career night during Saturday's victory over San Francisco as she had five of her 26 kills during a game-five win over the Lady Dons. The 26 kills sets a new career-high for Davis, whose previous high of 24 came last season in a five game win over UNLV. The 26 is also the highest individual total for a Gonzaga player since the inception of rally scoring last year. The previous team-high of 25 was set by Natasha Kozen against San Francisco.
PERRY TURNS IN DOUBLE-DOUBLES: Freshman setter Missy Perry turned it two double-doubles as Gonzaga split its weekend action. Perry finished with 38 assists and 10 digs during Friday's loss to Santa Clara. She then turned in a match-high 18 digs and 56 assists during the five-game win over USF. Perry currently ranks second on the Gonzaga team in digs during conference action with 2.73 digs per game. She is also third in digs for overall matches with 2.38 digs per game. Perry also turned in solid efforts at the net as she recorded her first block solo against Santa Clara and had four block assists against San Francisco. Her efforts also extended to the service game as she dropped in three aces against the Broncos and one ace against USF. BLOCKING FROM ALL DIRECTIONS: The Bulldogs turned in two solid blocking matches over the weekend with 34 blocks against Santa Clara and 26 blocks against San Francisco. Natasha Kozen and Abby Cullen led the charge on Friday night, Kozen finishing with nine blocks and Cullen eight. On Saturday Lauren Armas led Gonzaga with eight blocks and Abby Cullen had five. Cullen also reached a milestone on Saturday night as she moved into tenth place on the Gonzaga career block assists chart with 183. KIP MOVES TO 2-0 VS. USF: Kip Yoshimura may be making his first rounds as a head coach in the West Coast Conference, but Saturday marked the second time he has faced the Lady Dons as a head coach at GU. In 1992, Yoshimura had to guide the Bulldogs against San Francisco after head coach Sean Madden was suspended for the contest. While the game is reflected in Madden's career coaching record as a victory, Yoshimura guided the team to victory that night. GOING THE DISTANCE: Gonzaga has strived in going the distance over the last two seasons as the Bulldogs improved to 6-2 in five-game matches since the NCAA instituted the rally scoring format. Two of the Zags three wins this season have come in five game fashion against Florida Atlantic and San Francisco.
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