September 30, 2007

College Volleyball
Mustangs winning streak halted
Cal Poly loses its first Big West match this season, 3-1 at Pacific

It took 11 matches for the Cal Poly volleyball team to drop a Big West Conference match last year.

This season, it took only four.

The 20th-ranked Mustangs were shocked in a 3-1 loss at unranked Pacific on Saturday night, falling 14-30, 38-36, 30-27, 30-26 in front of 1,305 fans at the Alex Spanos Center in Stockton.

Cal Poly (9-7, 3-1) outhit Pacific .290 to .260 in the match but was outplayed down the stretch in each of the final three games. Kylie Atherstone had 22 kills on 51 attempts and Dominique Olowolafe and Jaclyn Houston added 11 kills each for the Mustangs.

Pacific (9-2, 3-1) was led by Svenja Engelhardt, whose 20 kills spearheaded a balanced attack that saw five players reach double digits.

The Mustangs were dominated in kills (86-63) and assists (79-59) while being edged in service aces (5-4) and digs (71-66), among other categories.

Cal Poly will try to regroup at home against Cal State Fullerton at 7 p.m. Friday.