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NCAA Women's Volleyball Tournament: Oregon, Stanford advance to Elite 8

by Sarah Kezele
Dec 7, 2018

Oregon, Stanford, Washington and Washington State are all in action on Friday, playing to advance to the quarterfinals of the 2018 NCAA Women's Volleyball Tournament. Here's how they fared:

Oregon

No. 15 Oregon 3, No. 2 Minnesota 1

Oregon pulled off the upset over the Minnesota Gophers for the second time this season, winning three straight sets after dropping the first one, 25-21. Ronika Stone, Lindsey Vander Weide and Willow Johnson did the heavy lifting on offense, contributing 20, 17 and 15 kills, respectively.

Brooke Van Sickle only logged four kills on the night, but two of them were majorly clutch: Oregon and Minnesota were locked in a wild back-and-forth in the second set, getting up to 39-39. That's when Van Sickle paired up with Brooke Nuneviller for two unanswered points to make it 41-39. Two Brookes for a set win in the books!

The Ducks soared in the third set but had to wade through a series of errors in the final few plays to finally get it done in the fourth. Stone delivered the final blow to end the game, 26-24. Oregon is now 23-10 on the year and is set to play No. 7 Nebraska in Saturday's quarterfinals at 3 p.m. PT.

Stanford

No. 1 Stanford 3, No. 16 Washington State 1

Kathryn Plummer, have a night! The Stanford junior went for 24 kills over four sets as the Cardinal took down Washington State on Friday at Maples Pavilion.

But that wasn't the most impressive stat of the night: Stanford's third-round victory led to a program-record 29 consecutive wins. You have to go all the way back to Aug. 31 for the Cardinal's last loss, a five-set thriller against then-#9 BYU.

Back-to-back-to-back Stanford errors at the end of the second set handed Washington State its only set victory of the evening, 26-24. Otherwise, it was all Stanford. Washington State's season comes to a close at 23-10, while the Cardinal revs up to face #8 Penn State on Saturday at 8 p.m. PT.

 

Washington

No. 8 8 Penn State 3, Washington 0

Washington did not have the same luck in its third-round matchup on Friday, falling in straight sets to the Nittany Lions. Perhaps the toughest part of the loss for the Huskies is that they were well within reach the whole time, losing two sets by four points and one set by two points. 

Kara Bajema is the only Husky to reach double-digit kills, while Penn State had three double-digit scorers to work with. Washington wraps up its season at 20-13.

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