Oregon Tech Rallies Past Evergreen

9/12/2015 9:16:04 PM

Oregon Tech rallied from a one-set deficit to beat The Evergreen State College, 20-25, 27-25, 25-13, 25-16, in a Cascade Collegiate Conference volleyball match played Saturday evening at CRC Gymnasium.

With the victory the visiting Owls improve to 8-2 overall and 3-1 in the conference, while the Geoducks fall to 2-7 overall and 2-2 in the conference with the defeat.

Evergreen played one of its best sets of the young season in rolling to the 25-20 victory. Oregon Tech scored the first two points, but when Natalie Taylor recorded the first of her 13 kills the Geoducks took a 4-3 lead and they stayed on top the rest of the way.

They continued to build on their advantage, taking their largest lead at 20-11 on a kill by Taylor, who had six during the set.

The second set turned out to be the turning point for both teams as the Owls won a back-and-forth battle. There were four lead changes and 12 ties in the set, and neither team led by more than three points. Oregon Tech was one point from a set victory at 24-21 when the Geoducks scored three consecutive points on a kill by Taylor and consecutive errors by the Owls. Eventually, however, the visitors wrapped up the set on a kill by Kelsey Sampson and an Evergreen ball handling error.

Oregon Tech built on that momentum and rolled in the final two sets, hitting .294 in the third set and .414 in the fourth. Kristin DePaoli, who led all players with 18 kills, collected nine of those in the third set.

Besides Taylor's 13 kills, Jorden Porter added 11 more for the Geoducks.

Joining DePaoli in double-figure kills for Oregon Tech were Sampson with 13 and Whitney Webster with 11. Sampson finished with a .500 attack percentage and DePaoli came in at .406. Tori Porter ended up with 36 assists in a two-setter format for the Owls.

Evergreen returns to conference action at 7 p.m. Tuesday when the Northwest University Eagles pay a visit to CRC Gymnasium.