Box Score
OLYMPIA – Evergreen State took narrow wins in the first two sets Friday night before Oregon Tech roared back to take a 23-25, 23-25, 25-14, 25-20, 15-12 Cascade Collegiate Conference volleyball victory in a match played at CRC Gymnasium.
With the victory, the Owls improve their overall record to 16-6 and their conference mark to 4-4. Evergreen State, meanwhile is now 11-10 overall and 2-6 in the conference.
Oregon Tech rallied for the win behind its tall and effective front line, compiling a total of 14 team blocks. Madisen Garlie, a 6-2 sophomore middle blocker, had one solo block and 10 block assists, while 6-1 middle Mykala Rubey added eight block assists.
There were six ties and four lead changes in an opening set that saw neither team lead by more than five points. With the score knotted at 23-23, Evergreen picked up the final two points on an OIT attack error and one of the seven service aces registered by Nicole Diehl during the match.
In the second set, Evergreen took a 19-10 lead on Nicole Pittelkau's kill, but Oregon Tech closed to within one point at 24-23 before Pittelkau finished the set with one of her match-high 16 kills.
Oregon Tech never trailed in the third set, racing out to a 17-7 lead as Garlie and Rubey dominated at the net.
The fourth set appeared to be more of the same as the Owls took a 7-0 advantage before Evergreen got on the board on an OIT service error. That little crack gave the Geoducks a start, and they built momentum to tie the score at 17-17. OIT's Renee Baumann put away two kills as the visitors scored the next three points, and they finished the set by scoring the final three points.
The match-deciding fifth set started out well for the Geoducks, who built a 3-0 lead behind a pair of service aces by Ivy Eakes. Oregon Tech tied it at 3-3, and in that hotly contested set there were seven ties and five lead changes before the Owls closed out their come-from-behind victory.
Rubey led a balanced Oregon Tech offense with 10 attacks and a .450 percentage, while Kristin DePaoli came off the bench to add nine kills and an impressive .750 attack percentage.
The Owls were barely in the positive in terms of attack percentage after the first two sets but ended up hitting .304, .360 and .444 in the final three sets to pull out the victory. Their final attack percentage was .214.
In addition to Pittelkau's 16 kills, Brandee Victorino added nine for the Geoducks, who hit just .041. Evergreen State registered 14 service aces. Molly King finished with three solo blocks and two block assists.
Evergreen State is back in action at 5 p.m. tomorrow when it hosts nationally ranked Southern Oregon at CRC Gymnasium.