Oregon State Wins Thriller over Michigan
The Beavers 7-0 start to the season is the second best in school history.
(CORVALLIS, Ore. ) — The Oregon State volleyball team (7-0) came out on top of a 5-set thriller against the visiting Michigan Wolverines Friday evening (25-17, 21-25, 25-22, 22-25, 15-13).
The Beavers 7-0 start to the season is the second best in school history.
“It was a gutsy comeback by us,” said head coach Taras Liskevych. “We were down in a lot of those sets and the team didn’t give up, they just kept grinding. It was great to see Mary-Kate Marshall really pick it up as the match went along. It’s always good to win against the Big-10 and we’re looking forward to playing Michigan State tomorrow night.”
The first set saw four lead changes and seven tied scores. With the score tied 9-9 the Beavers went on a 12-5 run to take a 21-14 lead. Junior libero Darby Reeder stepped to the service line with the score 23-17 OSU. Reeder downed an ace to give the Beavers set-point and Laura Schaudt supplied the finishing blow with a kill to give OSU the first set 25-17. Schaudt had four kills and no errors with 10 attacks in the first set, while middle blockers Arica Nassar and Amanda Brown combined for a perfect six kills on six swings.
The second set remained close early, with the Wolverines going on a 10-5 run to in the middle of the set to take a 19-14 lead. The Beavers made a late push in the set, with kills from Schaudt, Nassar and Katelyn Driscoll, but Michigan were able to hold off the OSU rally and take the set 25-21 and tie things up at 1-1 heading into the break.
The teams came out of the break into the third set equally fired up, with each team holding a lead in the first half of the third set. With the Wolverines leading 14-11 the Beavers jumped on a 5-0 run to take the lead at 16-14. After the Wolverines tied the score back up at 16-16, Marshall made it 17-16, downing her fifth kill in the set and 10th of the night. She finished the set with seven kills and no errors. The Beavers maintained that lead and took the set 25-22.
The fourth set saw four lead changes with the score being tied 15 times. Michigan was able to pull away at the end of the set, going on a 5-2 run to close things out at 25-22 and push things to a deciding fifth set.
After totaling five kills with three errors on 20 swings through the first two sets and bouncing back to the tune of 10 kills with no errors on 23 swings in sets three and four, Marshall dominated the deciding set. The freshman from Coppel, Texas was involved in eight points including the last three of the match. She downed six kills with no errors on 12 swings while adding two digs, a service ace and a block assist on the way to the 15-13 finish.
Marshall finished the match with 21 kills and 10 digs, for her second double-double on the season. Tayla Woods finished her superb night with 55 assists and 17 digs for her third double-double on the year. Schaudt hit .367 while totaling 13 kills on 30 swings. Driscoll and Nassar finished the match with 10 kills each and added 11 block assists between the pair.
“It was great to persevere and show that we can come through to earn a win as a team against a very tough opponent,” said Schaudt. “Now we’re focused on facing Michigan State tomorrow night.”
The Beavers return to action Saturday at 7:00 p.m. against No. 23 Michigan State.
OSU will look to remain undefeated on the year while playing a tough Spartan team that dropped a 4-set loss to No. 18 University of Oregon Friday night.
Source: Oregon State Athletics
