The Seattle University volleyball team twice battled to come back in matches, but couldn't quite make it all the way back and dropped a pair of matchups Friday at the Arizona State Sheraton Classic in Tempe, Ariz.
Seattle lost to the host Sun Devils 25-19, 25-21, 16-25, 25-13 and fell to Utah State 25-20, 25-14, 20-25, 14-25, 15-11.
“I am very proud of my team for playing hard all day," SU coach Shannon Ellis said. "We fought against Utah State , but just could not get things going in the fifth set. This is a great experience for our younger players, especially Sarah Jaeckel, who made a big impact today, and we are really excited about what our team can do going forward."
After dropping the first two games against Utah State (5-0), SU jumped to a 7-4 lead in the third game. A five-point run later brought the Redhawks to game point and, after two blocks, Jaeckel ended things with a kill to send the match to a fourth game. In that fourth game, SU came back from an 8-3 deficit with five-straight points, and then outscored Utah State 16-4 the rest of the way.
But Utah State took the lead from the start in the fifth game and while three kills by Jaeckel drew SU to within 9-7, an Aggie block got Utah State momentum back and it closed out the match with Liz McArthur's 22nd kill of the match.
Junior Cristin Richards had her fifth double-double of the season for the Redhawks against Utah State with 19 kills and 12 digs and Jaeckel, a 5-foot-11 outside hitter from Littleton, Colo., had 17 kills. Janet Beckerman had six blocks and setter Jamie Mellies had 43 assists. Libero Emily Deleissegues had 18 digs.
Arizona State (2-3) jumped out to a 2-game lead before SU came alive in the third game with a 7-2 run to take an 11-6 lead. Richards made three kills and Mellies had an ace to extend the lead to 15-8. ASU's offense made a trio of errors to give Seattle the match. But the Redhawks couldn't extend it to a fifth game, as the Sun Devils had scoring runs of 7-2 and 6-0 in the fourth game to cruise to the match win.
Richards had 19 kills and 10 digs and Beckerman had 10 kills for SU against ASU. Mellies had 45 assists and seven digs and Deleissegues had 19 digs.
Deleissegues finished with a total of 37 digs, leaving her 15 away from becoming the fifth player in program history with 1,000 in her career. Richards passed Janeen Fitzgerald and Libby Graff to move into fifth place in program history with 782 kills.
The Redhawks will try to turn things around when it meets San Diego State in the final match of the tournament at 10 a.m. today. The Aztecs are 4-1 after losing to Utah State and defeating Arizona State on Friday.
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