AZUSA, Calif. — The Dominican University of California women's volleyball team grabbed an early lead but was unable to hold on in a 3-1 (22-25, 25-21, 25-19, 25-21) PacWest loss at Azusa Pacific.
The two teams battled and were nearly even across the stat sheet but the Cougars (9-9/5-4 PacWest) were able to use their depth to edge the Penguins (5-9/2-6 PacWest) in the late sets.
Junior libero
Amanda Lee was one of five Penguins to record double digit digs with a match-high 32. In doing so, Lee closed the gap a bit but still remains second in the conference (5.69 digs/set) behind Concordia Irvine's Taylor Dennison (5.89 digs/set). Junior
Madeline Powelson added 13, sophomores
Aimee Steinwand and
Shannon RiggioKerley each added a dozen, and junior
Hannah Smith added 11.
Steinwand added a team-high 16 kills and freshman
Brittany Latigue added 14. Azusa Pacific was led by Mattie Shelford's 16 kills and Ashley Stawek's 27 digs.
Dominican trailed 13-10 in set one after a pair of attack errors but rebounded with three consecutive kills. Three Cougars errors gave Dominican a newfound lead, 16-13. The Penguins scored their next nine points on kills, capped by a pair from Smith. The Penguins committed only two attack errors in set two and led 9-5 early but a ball handling error and errant serve found the set even at 13 apiece. The second attack error came at inconvenient time, giving the Cougars a 14-13 lead and the momentum. From there, Azusa Pacific grew the deficit to five and the Penguins never got closer than three again.Dominican led 6-5 in set three but three consecutive attack errors gave Azusa Pacifc an 8-6 lead, one which they would not relinguish. Azusa Pacific pushed in set four and took a quick five-point lead. The Penguins trailed 15-5 but trimmed the lead to three, 23-20, on back-to-back kills from Steinwand but the Cougars scored two of the final three points for the win.
Dominican will look to salvage its three-match road trip on Saturday, Oct. 17 at California Baptist. However, the Penguins will have their work cut out against the first-place Lancers (14-3/7-2 PacWest), winners of their last three matches. First serve is slated for 2 p.m. in Riverside, California.
