No. 2 Oregon Ducks volleyball wins NCAA Tournament opener with balanced effort
Oregon’s postseason expectations extend beyond this opening weekend at Matthew Knight Arena.
That confidence was on display Thursday night as the second-seeded Ducks casually dispatched Southeastern Louisiana in the opening round of the NCAA Volleyball Tournament.
With a home crowd of 3,022 at its back, Oregon swept the Lions 25-16, 25-13, 25-13 and advanced to a second-round match against Hawaii at 7 p.m. Friday.
The Ducks (27-5) advanced to the second for the 15th time in program history and the 11th time since 2011.
Last season the Ducks also swept their first-round match at Matthew Knight Arena, starting a tournament run that would take them to the Elite Eight.
Oregon has no plans to have this season end any earlier.
“I think our biggest focus right now is just taking it one game at a time,” all-Pac-12 setter Hannah Pukis said. “It’s really easy to look ahead. So I think it's important for us that it's just the match in front of us right now.”
Outside hitter Mimi Colyer led a balanced and efficient offensive effort for the Ducks.
Colyer had a match-high 11 kills — the only player on either team in double digits — Kara McGhee had six kills, Gabby Gonzales, Karson Bacon and Morgan Lewis had five kills each, and even Pukis had four kills, along with 30 assists and eight digs.
“It makes my job really easy when the rest of our team is producing really well,” Colyer said. “Everyone is just clicking right now.”
Oregon hit .385 overall, its second-best hitting performance in an NCAA tournament match, and the best since hitting .405 against Clemson during a first-round match in 2009.
“I think it speaks volumes and I think it makes us really difficult to defend,” Pukis said. “When we put up numbers like this, it’s an I don't know how we can’t win, kind of thing. I think it's a really neat situation that there's not a bad option for us. So as long as it's a good pass, all options are open, which is really difficult to to beat.”
It certainly was for Southeastern Louisiana (28-5), which had its 22-match winning streak snapped.
The Lions gave the Ducks some trouble early in the first two sets. The opening set was tied 14-14 before Oregon pulled away and the Ducks only led the second set 9-8 before closing it out.
“I felt Southeastern Louisiana did a great job of playing quickly,” Oregon coach Matt Ulmer said. “They went back to the service line, they were ready to go, they were trying to push the tempo and trying to make us get on our heels. I thought they did a really good job of that. I think it took a little bit of adjusting for us to pick up the pace of play. But then once we we did we definitely settled down.”
Next up is Hawaii, a team Oregon beat 25-21, 25-21, 25-15 on Aug. 27 in the third match of the season. The Rainbow Wahine (24-8) beat Iowa State Thursday at Matthew Knight Arena, 3-1, to advance.
“We are familiar with them and they do a lot of things really well,” Ulmer said. “Generally, their ball control is high, high level and they have some really special attackers. So you know, really important to have a really good match.”
Follow Chris Hansen on Twitter @chansen_RG or email at chansen@registerguard.com. For more sports coverage, visit registerguard.com. Want more stories like this? Subscribe to get unlimited access and support local journalism.
This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Oregon volleyball opens NCAA Tournament with a 3-set first-round sweep
