Women’s Volleyball – Tue, Oct. 12, 2021
MERCED, Calif. – The University of California, Merced women’s volleyball team earned their second road sweep of the season, winning 3-0 (25-9, 25-17, 25-14) at Pacific Union College on Tuesday night under The Covered Wagon.
The Bobcats (6-11, 6-2) improved to 6-2 in California Pacific Conference play with the victory, the program’s best ever start through eight conference matches.
Olivia Harden highlighted the Bobcats sweep with 13 kills on a career-high .650 (13/0/20) hitting percentage. The senior is the first player in program history without an error with a minimum of 20 attempts. Harden also moved up the program-record books on Tuesday night, passing up Emily Romo for sixth on the all-time kills list with 472 career kills. Harden has double figure kills in four straight matches, tying her career-long streak originally set last season.
Hannah Dillingham added nine kills on a career-high .471 hitting percentage.
Harden and Dillingham were a big reason the Bobcats finished with a season-high .365 hitting percentage as a team, 54 points higher than the season-high set in the last match against Westcliff. With it, the Bobcats have now hit at least .300 in back-to-back matches for the first time since March 1 & March 7, 2021.
Serena Choi held match-high with 16 assists, while Bianca Malaluan (15 assists) and Jaide Davis (7 assists) also helped run the Bobcats offense to the .365 success rate. Choi also had two blocks to extend her career-best block streak to six straight matches. Only middle blocker Olanasaze Ojo has a longer active streak as she extended hers to nine matches with a solo block on Tuesday night. Additionally, Ojo pitched in four kills on four swings.
Lexus Lagumbay played a big role in the win, stuffing the stat sheet with 13 digs, five kills and a career-high six service aces. She is the first Bobcat with at least six service aces in a match since Cassandra Diaz recorded six on October 7, 2016. Lagumbay’s strong efforts also allowed her to move up the record books in both kills and service aces. Lagumbay passed Hannah Castillo and Rachael Schaefer for fifth in program history with 73 career service aces. The senior passed Shari Pandy for tenth all-time with 311 career kills.
Other individual notables from the sweep include two service aces from Tea Bishop, eight digs from Edwena Wong, three blocks from Brittany Johnson and a solo block from Teola Nowak.
The Bobcats 25-9 win in set one marked the…
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