By Haddy Barghouti (HB_SportsBeat) – Spear Reporter | Junior outside hitter Naima Foster spikes the ball over the net during SJSU’s 3-0 loss to UC Santa Barbara. (Photo by Mohammad Najimi – The Spear)
San Jose State women’s volleyball (0-2, 0-0 MW) dropped a 3-0 match to UC Santa Barbara (2-0, 0-0 Big West) in their second home game on Saturday.
The Spartans got off to a slow start, dropping the first set 25-17, after committing six errors while UCSB tallied four more kills.
The second set belonged to UCSB who took it 25–19, as SJSU committed two more errors than UCSB, highlighting the impact mistakes had on the loss.
The Spartans battled in the third set, narrowly losing 30–28 and forcing the Gauchos to play beyond the standard 25 points to secure the win.
“I just always look at it as a team overall, and I just thought we were better today than we were yesterday,” head coach Todd Kress said. “We have such a young group on the court so we just need to dig in and improve on some of those errors.”
Errors were a major factor in the Spartans’ loss, as they committed 19 compared with UC Santa Barbara’s five.
“We had two opportunities to win the last set and we didn’t hit either ball over the net,” Kress said. “You at least gotta give them a chance to play the ball, so that was frustrating; we just didn’t execute when we had those opportunities and our attack, we’d love to have those two balls back.”
The Gauchos came out on top in the kills battle, racking up 44 to the Spartans’ 39.
SJSU tried to spread the offense with 35 assists, but UCSB again had the advantage, posting 43.
Junior setter Fatimah Hall led the Spartans with 21 assists, followed by freshman setter Clara Christensen with eight.
The Spartans also got contributions across the board in kills, with four players recording a kill and redshirt junior Lolo Fonua leading the team with 11.
The defensive battle also favored UCSB, as SJSU recorded just two blocks compared with UCSB’s 11.
“Defensively, it’s really hard to play defense when you’re looking up at the block and the block’s not taking away anything, so we need to work on our block, and that will lead to a better defensive effort,” Kress said.
Although Kress noted that the team’s defense needs improvement, the Spartans showed progress: they lost the third set by 14 points yesterday, but today the largest set deficit was eight in the first set, a clear defensive improvement.
“Hopefully it will be a different outcome, but that’s something we just need to talk about in the practice gym to get better at when the score is tight and we would have the opportunity to finish,” Kress said.
The Spartans will travel to Honolulu for the Outrigger Invitational to face Utah Valley on Wednesday at 4:00 p.m. Pacific Time, at the Stan Sheriff Center, where they look to pick up their first win of the season.
