Cougars Spike Ucla

First in Los Angeles, then in Pullman. And finally, the Washington State University volleyball team has swept UCLA.

“It’s nice to wipe out the idea that this is a fluke,” Cougars setter Stephanie Papke said after No. 11 WSU rubbed out No. 23 UCLA Friday night at Bohler Gym 9-15, 15-6, 15-3, 15-9. “It proves we’re still on an upswing. We started out slow but we’ve going up, up, up. We’re headed toward our peak at the right time of the year.”

WSU, which has defeated UCLA three of the last four meetings including a 3-0 win at Pauley Pavalion in October, improved to 20-4 overall, 11-3 in the Pac-10.

ULCA, after dropping four of its last five Pac-10 matches, slipped to 14-10, 6-7. The win also gave the Cougars sole possession of second place in the Pac-10 because Washington (10-4 Pac-10) lost to USC 15-12, 15-12, 15-9. The Cougars are hosts to USC (10-3) tonight at 6.

There was a time Friday night it appeared the Bruins were going to turn their injury-riddled season around.

“They came out on fire,” Washington State coach Cindy Fredrick said. “I thought, ‘Yikes, if they keep this up we’re in trouble.”’

After jumping ahead 5-0 in the first game, the Cougars punished themselves by committing nine errors, four off their serves immediately following sideouts.

If that wasn’t a big enough momentum-stopper, the Cougars also were severely bruised by UCLA’s left-side hitter, Tanisha Larkin. The 5-foot-10 junior landed 7 of 10 attempted kills in the opening game, the most impressive being a Sarah Silvernail-style boomer that hit nothing but floor to give the visitors a 12-9 lead.

They closed out the first game when WSU’s Silvernail missed a hit that sailed wide right.

Then WSU bounced back.

“We adjusted our block,” said Papke. “We forced her (Larkin) to go down the line and took her out of her comfort zone, which was what we were supposed to do. Cindy was yelling at us to do that.”

Fredrick also was preaching blocking and serving. And her team responded.

The Cougars were behind 3-1 in the second game, but Larkin’s kills began landing far behind the back line and the Cougars rallied.

UCLA was stuck on five points most of the game while the Cougars chipped away toward game-point, due in big part to 10 UCLA errors.

“I didn’t think we’d be able to maintain the tempo of the first game,” UCLA coach Andy Banachowski said. “And we started making some mistakes.”

With that, the Cougars easily wiped out the visitors in the final two games, pleasing the 1,703 lively spectators.

Silvernail, the team’s leading hitter (.425 percentage, second in the Pac-10), finished with a match-high 20 kills (.317 percent) and a match-high 10 digs. The Cougars hit .192 to UCLA’s .041.

Visiting Gonzaga used Christine Kubista’s 26 kills and Nicole Lamoure’s 70 assists to dust off Saint Mary’s College 15-17, 15-12, 15-13, 15-12 at McKeon Pavilion.

The Bulldogs hit only .215, but managed to rally from a first-set loss to raise their record to 11-17 overall and 4-6 in the West Coast Conference. Saint Mary’s (5-18 and 1-9) got 27 kills from Vanessa Dahl. , DataTimes