University of California, Merced – Bobcats Fall to BenU Mesa in Four Sets

CHANDLER, Ariz. – The University of California, Merced women’s volleyball team dropped a four-set affair to Benedictine University at Mesa, 1-3 (20-25, 24-26, 25-22, 15-25) on Thursday night in the first of a three-match Arizona road-trip.

The Bobcats (7-12, 7-3) loss snapped a season-long three-match winning streak.

In a meeting between last year’s California Pacific Conference regular season champions and the Cal Pac Tournament champions, Olanasaze Ojo held match-high with seven blocks and three Bobcats recorded double figure digs.

Ojo’s seven-block match was her third of the season and fifth of her career. Two of Ojo’s blocks were solo.

Edwena Wong held team-high with 16 digs and tied her career-high with three service aces, while Lexus Lagumbay stuffed the stat sheet with 14 digs, seven kills and notched a career-high three blocks. Lagumbay extended her double-figure dig streak to a career-long four matches. 

Lagumbay also had a service ace to pass Genna Garrett for second on the program’s all-time list with 76 career service aces. In addition, she passed Hannah Castillo for ninth in all-time appearances having appeared in 302 career sets.

Serena Choi was the third Bobcat with double figure digs, finishing with a season-high 12 to go along with ten assists for her second career double-double. Choi’s first double-double came in last year’s Cal Pac Semifinal match. Choi also tied her career-high with three kills in her first ever match against BenU Mesa.

Jalen Carey neared double figure digs with nine but did notch her fourth multi-service ace match of the season with a pair of aces midway through the first set.

Valentina Evans and Teola Nowak added to the Bobcats defensive efforts with three blocks each. The middle blocker/opposite duo each have at least three blocks in two of the Bobcats last four matches.

Other individual notables include 13 assists from Bianca Malaluan, seven kills from Nowak and six kills from Olivia Harden.

The Bobcats fell in four sets partly because of their worst offensive success rate during conference play (-.007) and getting aced 13 times. BenU Mesa’s Kylie Bartel had six service aces.

Bartel got going early and was behind the service line for a 10-0 BenU Mesa run that put the Redhawks up 10-4 in the opening set. The Bobcats answered with four straight points to come within a pair but that was as close as they would get the rest of the frame. They fell behind by a game-high seven points at…