Four-Set Win at Utah Pushes Streak to Nine

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — The No. 14 Oregon volleyball team extended its winning streak to nine in a row with Sunday's four-set win (25-16, 22-25, 25-22, 25-18) at Utah. With the result, the Ducks win their first match in Salt Lake City since 2017 and improve to 19-5 this season with a 13-3 mark in Pac-12 play.
 
For the third time this season, freshman Mimi Colyer put away 25 kills to tie her career high. She ended the match hitting .408 to go along with nine digs, two blocks and a pair of aces. Brooke Nuneviller and Gloria Mutiri each reached double figures with 14 and 10 kills, respectively. Kiari Robey just missed out on double digits with nine kills in 19 swings out of the middle.
 
Hannah Pukis directed the UO offense to a .319 hitting percentage including a .400 figure in the fourth. She finished the night with 48 assists and 10 digs. Nuneviller posted a double-double of her own, adding 11 digs to her offensive output.
 
Defensively, libero Georgia Murphy led all players with 16 digs in the triumph. Daley McClellan, in her first start of the season, contributed with eight digs and two aces. She becomes the seventh Duck with double-digit aces this year. Robey registered a match-high four total blocks.
 
How It Happened: With the match tied at 1-1 and Utah out to a 17-13 lead, the Ducks answered with a 9-2 run to go ahead 22-19 and force their opponent to call a timeout. Nuneviller and Robey teamed up for a block and lead at 19-18 during the surge, UO's first lead since being up 6-5 earlier in the set. At 23-21, Mutiri crushed an overpassed ball off a tough Nuneviller serve for set point.
 
Utah (15-12, 8-8) won the next point to extend the set but an attack error on the ensuing rally gave the Ducks the 2-1 match lead.
 
Looking to close things out, Oregon jumped out to a 4-1 advantage in the fourth with the help of three Utah miscues. The home team responded with five of the next six points to take a 6-5 lead but UO put together a three-point push to take the lead for good and was up 8-6 after a Utah attack error.
 
With the Ducks leading 15-10, the teams exchanged four-point runs resulting in a 19-14 cushion on the scoreboard. Colyer posted a kill followed by an ace for a 23-16 lead and Karson Bacon registered a kill for a handful of match points at 24-16. Utah won the next two points but Pukis went to Bacon on a slide for the final kill of the afternoon.
 
Oregon hit .353 in a dominating opening set, using a 7-1 run in the middle stages of the opener. On the team's third set point, Robey had a kill to end the frame.
 
Utah never trailed in the second set despite six ties. The Utes led 21-16 but Oregon rattled off the next five points to tie the score at 21-all. Robey had two blocks and a kill during the push. However, the Utes won four of the next five points to secure the set and even the match at one set apiece.
 
Notable: With her ninth kill against Utah, Nuneviller became the eighth player in program history with 1,400 career kills. She now has 1,405 kills in her UO career, just 16 shy of Alaina Bergsma (2010-12) for seventh place on the Ducks' top-10 list. Nuneviller (1,596.5 points) is now also within nine of fifth place on the UO all-time points list, a spot currently occupied by Ronika Stone (1,605.5 points | 2016-19).
 
Up Next: Oregon is back at Matthew Knight Arena on Friday, Nov. 18, to host UCLA. First serve is set for 7 p.m. (PT) on Pac-12 Oregon. The Ducks will play three of their final four in the regular season at home. Click HERE for the Ducks' full schedule.
 
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