Women's Volleyball: No. 24 Ducks Fall at Arizona State

Sophomore hitter Mira Djuric led UO with 16 kills and 17.5 points, and freshman middle blocker Sonja Newcombe posted a double-double with 12 kills and 14 digs.

Katie Swoboda set the single-season digs mark with 20 against ASU. goducks.com

TEMPE, Ariz. - Katie Swoboda etched her name in Oregon’s volleyball record book, but the 24th-ranked Ducks came up short against Arizona State, falling 3-1 on Friday night in the Desert.

A sophomore libero from Portland, Ore., Swoboda set the Oregon single-season digs mark and recorded the 900th of her brief UO career, moving into 10th place on the school’s all-time list.

Her 20 digs tied for the match high, giving her a total of 469 this season and 917 overall in a Duck uniform.

“Katie continues to prove, match in and match out, that she is one of the top college liberos in the country,” said head coach Jim Moore. “She is going to have plenty of records here before she leaves Eugene.”

The milestone was bittersweet for the Ducks (17-7, 7-7 Pac-10), who were dealt a 30-23, 14-30, 27-30 and 21-30 setback by the host Sun Devils (13-13, 5-10), who were fighting for their postseason lives.

“Not to take anything away from ASU, but we did ourselves in with too many costly mistakes,” Moore said. “I don’t know if going five (against Arizona) last night took something out of us, but we just weren’t sharp tonight.”

After the sides traded wins in the first two games, Oregon led for the bulk of the third set before some untimely attack errors swapped the score, turning a 24-22 UO advantage into a three-point loss.

Sophomore hitter Mira Djuric led UO with 16 kills and 17.5 points, and freshman middle blocker Sonja Newcombe posted a double-double with 12 kills and 14 digs. Newcombe also had seven total blocks, including two solos.

Freshman setter Nevena Djordjevic had a double-double with 10 digs and 34 assists. Junior blocker Karen Waddington hit a team-high .364 (5-1-11) and had five blocks.

The Ducks actually out-scored ASU in overall points, 77-75. Oregon committed 34 attack errors and helped the Sun Devils with an additional 21 points from service and ball handling errors.

ASU’s Nina Reeves had match-highs of 19 kills, six solo blocks and 26.0 points.

Oregon won the digging battle, 64-59, and Arizona State held the edge on the block, 17-13. The Ducks had 60 kills to ASU’s 56, but the Sun Devils out-hit UO, .218 (56-22-156) to .154 (60-34-169).

With four matches remaining in the regular season, Oregon faces possibly its most daunting stretch of the year, finishing with No. 2 Stanford, No. 12 California, No. 6 USC and No. 5 UCLA.

The first two matches of that murderer’s row take place next week at McArthur Court with the Cardinal visiting on Thursday (7:00 PM) and the Golden Bears on Friday (5:00 PM).

Friday’s match is senior night and will be the opener of a doubleheader with the men’s basketball team.

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