Nov. 7, 2003

Box Score

SPOKANE, Wash. - Gonzaga University once again found itself on the short end of a volleyball decision as the Bulldogs battled hard on Friday but could not overcome the University of San Francisco falling 3-0 to the Lady Dons in West Coast Conference volleyball action. USF (20-6, 4-6 WCC) won the contest 30-27, 30-27, and 30-19 to sweep the season series from the Bulldogs and win 20 games for the first time in school history. Gonzaga fell to 3-23, 0-10 in the WCC as the Bulldogs prepare to host Saint Mary's College on Saturday night. The match has been moved to after the men's basketball exhibition game with a start time approximated at 8:30 p.m.

Gonzaga and San Francisco fought through the first two games as the Bulldogs pulled to within 27-26 during the first game before eventually falling 30-27. In the second match the teams had seven ties during the game and two lead changes before USF could pull away in the final points 30-27.

"We played hard in those first two games," said second-year Bulldogs head coach Kip Yoshimura. "We had some chances two win both of those games and are just falling a bit short. Abby (Cullen) had some great kills in both games to try and get our offense going."

Cullen would lead the Bulldogs with 12 kills on 21 attacks and a .333 attack percentage. The Bulldogs would finish with 36 kills as a team, Christina Davis finished second with 9. San Francisco had three players reach double figure kills with Teresa Russell leading all players with 14 kills. Brittanie Budinger added 11 followed by Theresa Hart at 10. USF collected 51 kills as a team with 19 coming in both games one and two.

In the final game USF raced out to a 16-7 advantage and held off two Gonzaga rallies that closed the score to within three points. USF finally put the contest away 30-19 with Russell hammering down three of the Lady Dons final five points. April Scoggin had 36 assists for USF while Emilee Gihring had 33 for Gonzaga.

"I thought Emilee did a solid job of setting our attackers tonight," Yoshimura commented. "She had to sit out most of this weeks practice and really played well despite missing a couple of days. The timing to our attackers was pretty good; we just could not get enough kills on those sets to win the match."

Gonzaga had 12 digs from senior Heather Signor as she continues her chase of the Bulldogs single-season and career digs record. Signor now has 1,228 career digs and 364 on the season. She needs 72 more digs for the single-season record and 75 digs for the career record, both held by Linda Bushinski.

San Francisco had two players reach double figure kills with Caroline Skacel at 13 and Teresa Russell at 10. San Francisco next travels to Portland while Gonzaga will host Saint Mary's on Saturday night. The Gaels were 3-1 winners over Portland on Friday night.