The Oregon San volleyball team is still experiencing growing pains in its inaugural season as it dropped to 0-3 on the season with losses to LSU and the College of Charleston in the second and third matches of the Gamecock Invitational.
Just like the opening match, the Ducks fell to both opponents 4-1 in the scoring column. Keeping up with the theme of “just like yesterday,” Shellsy Ashen and Martenne Bettendorf were the only Ducks duo to earn a victory, winning both of their matches to record the only points for Oregon throughout the entire Invitational.
Ashen and Bettendorf defeated their LSU counterparts 21-12 and 21-18 and then dispatched the No. 4 spot of College of Charleston players 21-17, 17-21 and 17-15.
The Ducks fell handily to LSU in their first action of the day as only one match went to three sets as Kacey Nady and Tatum Norton rallied to win the first set 21-17 but then fell 19-21 in the second set. The third set provided a lot of drama but the duo came out on the losing end, falling 13-15 at their No. 3 spot.
The match between the Ducks and College of Charleston was as entertaining as it gets as four of the five matches went the three-set distance but the Ducks came up on the losing end on three of them.
Canace Finley and Natalie Bookout Gonzalez showed a lot of fight in their No. 1 match as they came back from losing set one 23-25 to win the second set 21-19 and force a third set. The duo ran out of steam though as they fell 15-11. Oregon’s No. 2 duo spot of Liz Brenner and Amanda Benson started strong with a 21-13 win but fell in the next two sets by scores of 14-21 and 10-15.
Norton and Nady fought back to win their second set 21-18 after falling 15-21 in the first set and force a third and decisive set. Just like the previous duos, this duo lost the third set, falling 10-15 this time.
The Ducks return to action on Sunday to finish out the Gamecock Invitational with matches against Louisiana-Monroe at 6 a.m. and Alabama-Birmingham at 10:30 a.m. PT.
Follow Ryan Kostecka on Twitter @Ryan_Kostecka