Junior Christina Lee sets a ball up for middle blocker Molly Pearson as the Bulldogs face the Belmont Bruins in the first game of the Fresno State Classic. Photo by Khlarissa Agee/The Collegian
The Fresno State Bulldogs’ women’s volleyball team finished second in the Fresno State Classic over the weekend, with the No. 20 Oregon Ducks finishing in first place.
In addition to the Ducks, the Belmont Bruins and Cal State Bakersfield Roadrunners participated in the tournament.
During the Classic, the Bulldogs focused on three keys to their game: serving, passing and discipline.
Despite finishing second in the hometown tournament, the Bulldogs’ gameplay was, in the words of head coach Lauren Netherby-Sewell, night and day compared to other preseason games.
“We finished shaky, but we actually had a good weekend,” Netherby-Sewell said. “We dealt with some adversity this week that was kind of crazy. We had to switch the lineup quite a bit.
“Overall it was a good tournament. We started serving a lot tougher which will take us into conference [play]. Preseason is all about getting ready for conference and I liked it.”
Netherby-Sewell’s lineup switch was putting her usual libero Christina Lee as setter and starting freshman libero Maggie Eppright.
And the switch worked out very well. Lee totaled 114 assists and 37 digs in the tournament. Eppright had five service aces, placing her second overall in the Classic with 0.45 per set.
“We had a new setter and she did an amazing job,” Netherby-Sewell said of Lee. “I’m blown away by the effort she made just to change positions. After training as a libero for two years then come in when we need her and set the way she did was absolutely unbelievable.
“She kept our hitters confident and in rhythm.”
Lee attributed her success as a setter to the confidence that the Bulldogs have in her. As a libero, she was able to pass the torch to Eppright and transfer the positive energy.
“I told her to keep up the good work, she’s doing great,” Lee said. “Her passing is awesome and her defense is awesome. I think that she’s really going to help us this season.”
Fresno State vs. Belmont
Lee’s best game was against the Bruins, where she totaled 57 assists and three kills.
“The whole team just gave me so much confidence,” Lee said. “They supported me and believed that I could do it, so I just went out there and did what I can for the team.”
Fresno State was down 2-0 by halftime. The Bruins threatened to put the nail in the coffin, but the Bulldogs rallied and won three straight sets to take the match.
“[At halftime] we just told each other to keep working, we knew we can do it. We needed to come out strong and just keep chipping away,” Lee said.
For Netherby-Sewell, a win is a win, but the team has to be more comfortable from the first set.
“They have to lead better from the beginning,” the coach said of her veteran class. “Once they got comfortable they started calming down and doing their thing.”
Fresno State vs. CSU Bakersfield
The Bulldogs looked refreshed in their second game of the tournament. They allowed fewer than 20 points in each set against the Roadrunners en route to a sweep.
Senior outside hitter Korrin Wild led the squad with 14 kills and 36 total attacks. Senior right side hitter Holly Franks had a double-double: 10 kills and 10 digs.
The Bulldogs were able to maintain control in the game, committing only 40 percent of the errors they made against Belmont.
“Discipline was a lot better,” Netherby-Sewell said. “We saw fewer little errors like net violations and things like that. We weren’t giving the opponent as many as we have in the past couple of weeks.”
Communication was the reason the Bulldogs were organized. With an increased attack percentage, they were able to shift the Roadrunners’ game plan and forced CSU Bakersfield to make 30 errors.
“We’ve really been working on our conversations throughout the play, verbalizing what we see, and that’s been helping a lot,” Wild said.
The Bulldogs’ serving improved this round. They had five service aces, three of which came from Eppright.
“You’ve seen the lack of confidence there and it always manifests itself in the serving,” Netherby-Sewell said. “Today we got through that and we started serving a lot tougher.”
Fresno State vs. Oregon
On Saturday night, the Bulldogs faced the Ducks for first place in the Classic.
Fresno State put up a fight during the first set. It forced three lead changes before Oregon scored three unanswered points to win.
The second and third sets slipped out of the Bulldogs’ hands. Fresno State was only limited to 10 kills in each match and committed a total of 14 errors.
The Ducks scored 10 unanswered points in the third set, but the Bulldogs did not go down quietly. Fresno State tried to rally in the end and outscored the Ducks 6-3 in the final nine points of the set. Oregon was able to hold off a potential upset and won the match 25-14.
“We came out on fire versus Oregon tonight but broke down in our serving and passing,” Netherby-Sewell said. “You can’t do that against a top-25 team.”
In the serving game, the Bulldogs had two service aces and six errors.
“We are a very good serving team, and we can debilitate teams with our serve,” said middle blocker Lauren Albertson. “I think we just didn’t take enough advantage of that.”
Wild and Murdock win All-Tourney Honors
Wild and junior middle blocker Maci Murdock won two all-tournament awards for their headstrong play during the classic.
Wild led the tournament in kills with 46 in 10 sets played. Her 48.5 points also led the classic, 7.5 more than second place.
Murdock had a 43.8 percent attack percentage, the best for the Bulldogs and third overall in the classic. She also exceled defensively with an average of 0.82 blocks per set, which was tenth in the tournament.
Fresno State will head to Southern California to participate in the UC Irvine Invitational on Friday. It will face the Xavier University Musketeers, American University Eagles and UC Irvine Anteaters.