Cougars Need A Split In Bay Area

It doesn’t take Will Hunting to do the math.

The Washington State volleyball team heads to the Bay Area and Cougars coach Cindy Fredrick is looking to come home with a .500 weekend record.

“We’ve got to come away with a split,” said Fredrick, whose 4-5, 1-2 Cougars are coming off a five-game loss at Washington.

A split, or more like a must win against last-place California?

The Cougars play seventh-ranked Stanford tonight. They’re at Cal on Sunday.

WSU has never won at Maples Pavilion and beat the Cardinal only once - 1996 at Bohler Gym - in 25 attempts. The Cougs lead the series against the Bears 14-10 and have won the last 12 matches.

This season, the Cardinal remains the power in the Pac-10 Conference. The names have changed - 1997 conference player of the year Kristin Folkl and super-setter Lisa Sharpley are gone - but the Cardinal have reloaded nicely. They lead the conference with a 4-0 record, 8-2 overall. Last Friday, Stanford handed Arizona its first loss of the season, 3-1.

This year’s big guns have been sophomore Jennifer Detmer (3.89 kills, 1.87 blocks per game) and junior All-American Kerri Walsh (3.76 kills, 3.06 digs, 1.33 blocks per game). Robyn Lewis, a sophomore from Long Beach, Calif., is third in the conference in assists with 13.33 per game.

By comparison, WSU’s Samantha Spink ranks last among starters with 11.15 assists per game. Cal’s Candace McNamee, a freshman from Wheaton, Md., is ninth at 11.51.

The Bears are hitting a conference-last .156 while the Cougars are hitting .175, which puts them in ninth place. Sophomore outside hitter Jameka Stevens, a University of Hawaii transfer from Olympia, leads the Bears with 3.51 kills per game.

“It’s never a pleasant experience to play on the road in the Pac-10,” Fredrick said. “Our team is learning that no team in the Pac-10 lays down for anybody.”

Vandals fall to Wolf Pack

Senior Jessica Moore and freshman Heather Kniss combined for 18 kills in the University of Idaho’s 15-7, 9-15, 8-15, 15-8, 15-6 Big West Conference loss to Nevada on Thursday night in Reno.

Idaho is 9-7 overall, 2-1 in the Eastern Division. Nevada, also 2-1 in the conference, improved to 10-2.

Eagles hope to remain Sky high

Eastern Washington took care of its former Big Sky Conference nemesis Tuesday night, defeating Idaho at Moscow, 3-1, but it’s the current conference foes they’re after now.

The Eagles (10-2, 2-1), still smarting over last week’s critical 3-2 loss to Northern Arizona, travel to Portland State (3-11, 0-3) on Saturday.

They followed the loss with a big 3-1 win against Sacramento State, but still slipped in the USA Today/ Sagarin rankings from 10th (two weeks ago) to 27th.

Gonzaga opens conference play

After compiling a 3-9 non-conference record, Gonzaga begins West Coast Conference play this weekend against the conference’s best and worst teams. Tonight at 7, first-place San Diego visits the Martin Centre. The Toreros are 10-2 and ranked No. 17 in the coaches’ poll. The Bulldogs play host to San Francisco (1-13) Saturday at 7.

Spikes and digs

University High grad Gretchen Smith had a great week as an outside hitter for Linfield College. Smith had 51 kills and 65 digs in four wins. The Northwest Conference Wildcats are 7-5, 2-3. … Gonzaga senior setter Nicole Lamoure is the third player in school history to surpass 4,000 career sets with 4,222. … Eastern senior middle blocker Kim Exner’s 45 kills last week puts her career total at 1,520. She’s the first player in the Big Sky to put up more than 1,500 kills. … Idaho outside hitter Beth Craig is averaging a team-best 3.62 kills per game. She’s put up more than 10 kills in 10 matches this season.