BOX SCORE

SAN RAFAEL, Calif. — The Dominican University of California women's volleyball team was aiming to take care of business on Wednesday night against Silicon Valley's business school.

Instead their collective play didn't add up right.

Though sophomore Ashlee Sand came back from an injury and Kelsey Lardner and freshman Alex Gasologa came off the bench to give the Lady Penguins a lift, they suffered an excruciating close 25-23, 26-24, 25-21 straight set loss to Menlo College (4-7) in the Conlan Center.

“It's about getting over the hump,” said Dominican Head Coach Gayle Stammer. “We made some changes this week but I think they're thinking too much about what they're doing on the court as opposed to being able to relax.”

In the first-set loss, Dominican had its exceptional moments.  A pair of great digs by Jessica Jones led to a perfect set by Sarah Bain for a Skyler Moon kill and a 12-12 tie, the eighth of the opening set. The Lady Penguins fell behind after that and were in danger of going down five points when freshman Samantha Rains went off the court to make a fantastic save in front of the scorer's table.

From there, kills by Sand, Rains, and sophomore Seluia "Ria" Falealili pulled the Lady Penguins within a point and back-to-back well-placed dumps at the net by Jones had Dominican trailing 24-23 but the home team couldn't complete its comeback.

“We stuck to the game plan and we scored,” said Stammer. “It's just a matter of being able to do that 100 percent of the time.”

In the second set, Dominican trailed 5-0 and 10-6 before rallying. The Lady Penguins tied the game twice on kills by Falealili and went ahead with service aces by Sand and Gasaloga. Gasaloga made a brilliant dig minutes later that finished the point with a Jones kill. That gave Dominican a 20-17 advantage and forced the Oaks to call timeout for the second time in the set.

The Lady Penguins' lead grew to 24-22, but they couldn't get over the hump as Menlo scored the final four points of the set.

In the final set, Dominican fell behind early by seven points, its largest deficit of the night, and never recovered. The Lady Penguins did manage to whittle a 22-14 deficit down to 24-20, but ran out of game. Dominican's highlight of the set was a kill shot by Jones that was so hard that Menlo's attempt at a dig launched the ball high into the rafters of the Conlan Center.

Jones finished the match with a team-high nine kills and contributed eight digs. Falealili had seven kills and six digs. LaShelle Rullan paced the Lady Penguins with 14 digs but it was the play off the bench of Sand and Gasaloga that was the most encouraging sign on the evening.
“That's what I was looking for,” said Stammer. “I thought they both came in and played well.”

Menlo College offered another encouraging sign as well. The Oaks, after starting the season 0-6, have improved to 4-7.

The Lady Penguins are back on the court on Saturday in San Francisco where they play a non-conference game against Pacific West Conference rival Academy of Art University in Kezar Pavilion at 7:00 p.m.