Box Score SAN RAFAEL, Calif. — The Dominican University of California women's volleyball team rallied back from an early deficit but for the fourth consecutive match fell in five sets. The Pacific West Conference match instead went in favor of visiting Dixie State University (22-25, 25-19, 25-23, 15-25, 15-6).
Dominican has played to five sets in seven of its 11 matches and has just one victory, over Saint Martin's University, in those close matches.
Hannah Stocking-Siagkris swung hard and provided a match-high 16 kills for Dominican (1-10/0-3).
Megan Callen added a season-high 12 kills and four blocks.
Amanda Wasko chipped in nine kills. The Penguins did a good job of digging the ball and had 78 as a team with six different players recording 10 or more digs, led by Wasko and freshmen
Amanda Lee and
Madeline Powelson.
Kelsey Lardner continued her strong play since returning from injury and had 47 assists.
Kendahl Weiland's 15 kills paced the Red Storm (6-3/3-0), followed by a dozen apiece from Maddie Rex and Shannon Young.
The Penguins jumped out to a three-point lead in set one and despite allowing the Red Storm to even the score, pulled away late with an 8-2 run to close out the set, 25-22, and included four kills from Stocking-Siagkris.
An 8-1 run by Dixie State in the second set made the difference in a 25-19 set and helped even the match at 1-1 between the two teams. Dixie State maintained the momentum coming out of intermission and used a pair of four-point runs to pull away 25-23. Dominican tied the set at 23-23 on another Stocking-Siagrkis kill but back-to-back kills by Rex and Weiland put Dixie State ahead 2-1.
The Penguins looked to have turned a corner in set four and absolutely dominated. Dominican hit .343 in the set and went on an 8-1 and a 6-0 run to cruise to a 25-15 set four and yet again force a decisive fifth set.
Dominican just couldn't get things going though and Weiland put down three kills quickly to help Dixie State to an early 5-0 lead. Dominican got a pair of points back but the Red Storm rattled off another five unanswered points to make it 10-2. The Penguins were forced to play defensively and couldn't recover, dropping the set 15-6.
Dominican kicks off a three-game road trip, beginning with Point Loma on Friday, Sept. 27. The Penguins will look to avenge a five-set loss to the Sea Lions beginning at 7:00 p.m. in another PacWest matchup.
