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No. 18 Ducks Dominate Home Opener

Sep 2, 2022

EUGENE, Ore. – In its home opener Thursday evening, the No. 18 Oregon volleyball team poured it on early in a straight-set victory over UC Davis at Matthew Knight Arena. Freshman Mimi Colyer was near unstoppable with a match-high 21 kills on 30 swings and the defense stifled the Aggies' effort, holding the opponent to a -.049 hitting percentage.
 
Colyer, the reigning Pac-12 Freshman of the Week, finished the evening with a .667 hitting percentage with her only error coming in the third set. She put down nine kills in the first and third sets. As a team, Oregon (3-0) hit .451 under the direction of Hannah Pukis and Elise Ferreira who split time at setter in the match.
 
How It Happened
The Ducks posted identical winning scores of 25-8 in the first two sets against UC Davis (3-1). Oregon raced out to an 8-2 lead in the opening set, eventually building a double-digit lead—15-5—after Pukis and Karson Bacon teamed up for a block. The home team rattled off the last six points of the set and took the 1-0 match lead after another tandem block.
 
In similar fashion to the first, Oregon established an early advantage in set two and led 10-2 after back-to-back attack errors by the Aggies. A block by Reagan Hope and Gloria Mutiri pushed the lead to 13-3 and forced a second UC Davis timeout in the set. The Ducks maintained a double-digit cushion and put the set away with a kill by Brooke Nuneviller.
 
The third set was the tightest of the night with UC Davis taking a 7-5 lead behind the serving of Megan Lenn who had a couple of aces during a four-point surge. After some back-and-forth play through the middle stages of the set, the Ducks used a six-point push to turn a 15-all set into a 21-15 lead. Oregon rode the momentum to the finish, and as she'd done in the first two matches of the year, Colyer tallied the final point.
 
Notable
With her fourth kill, Gloria Mutiri reached the 1,000 career milestone … 447 of those kills have come during her time at Oregon; spent two seasons (2018, '19) at Kansas State … Nuneviller led all players with 12 digs … Kiari Robey tallied five kills and a match-high six blocks.
 
Up Next
The No. 18 Ducks wrap up the Oregon Invitational with a Saturday evening matchup with Rice. First serve is scheduled for 6 p.m. (PT) at Matthew Knight Arena. Click HERE for Oregon's full schedule.
 
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