Pack drops two for third straight weekend

Tuesday, September 15, 2009 - 1:15 AM

The Wolf Pack volleyball team finished third in the Circus Circus Invitational after Friday and Saturday’s matches at the Virginia Street Gym. Portland State posted a perfect 3-0 record to capture the invitational title while the University of California, Davis finished second (2-1), leaving Nevada in third place (1-2) and Sam Houston State last (0-3).

The Wolf Pack’s 1-2 record marked the third straight weekend Nevada has gone 1-2. The team is 3-6 on the season.

Nevada played UC Davis on Friday in a discouraging match which ended 3-1 with set scores of 25-20, 25-23, 23-25 and 25-12. Wolf Pack volleyball head coach Devin Scruggs said the team was not prepared enough mentally to overtake the Aggies after being down 2-0.

“It’s not so much about being prepared for the match as it is being prepared for every play,” said Scruggs, who has been Nevada’s head coach since 1997.

In the match, junior Kylie Harrington led Nevada with a season-high 18 kills and Tatiana Santiago helped the team with 25 assists and 12 digs. After the Wolf Pack won the third set, UC Davis came back aggressively, holding a double-digit advantage over Nevada to win the final match.

Harrington had high expectations for Saturday’s matches, despite her team’s loss against UC Davis.

“I thought that (even though) we lost (Friday), we held a pretty good intensity throughout the game and if we bring that into the next two matches we’ll be pretty good,” she said.

Nevada returned Saturday to battle Sam Houston State.

The first two matches revealed what seemed to be a repeat of the previous match with Nevada trailing again at 2-0. The Wolf Pack refused to bow out this time and came back with three blowout matches against the Bearkats, scoring 25-9, 25-18 and 15-6.

Nevada hit a .438 attack percentage in the fifth set and held Sam Houston State to a negative .053.

“We were fortunate to pull out a win against Sam Houston State after being down 2-0,” Scruggs said. “That was probably our worst volleyball and our best volleyball in the same match.”

After only a few hours of rest, the Wolf Pack played its final match of the weekend against Portland State. Nevada managed to take only one set from the Vikings, losing 3-1.

Harrington had 15 kills, and junior middle blocker Lindsay Baldwin totaled 12 kills in the match. Both were named to the All-Tournament team for their performances.

Senior Jorgan Staker also had a noteworthy performance against the Vikings with 12 kills and 17 total assists. Staker said although the Wolf Pack lost two out of three games in the invitational, the team played well together.

“We knew there were going to be some tough teams here and we knew that we were going to have to play really well so we just came in and did the best we could,” she said.

Nevada will next take part in the Pacific Tournament which starts Friday in Stockton, Calif. Scruggs plans to take advantage of the time to work on the team’s offense and blocking.

“We’ve got to be able to put balls away and keep them in the 30-by-30 (court),” she said.

Kaitlyn Whiteside can be reached at sports@nevadasagebrush.com