KEVIN KLAUS/Arizona Daily Wildcat Sophomore middle blocker Jolene Killough reaches for a kill in Saturday's 3-2 win over No. 17 Washington State in McKale Center. The Wildcats mounted a comeback from two games down to win 5-2 and escape with a weekend split against the Washington schools.

The Arizona volleyball team was one game away from a weekend that could have been disastrous.

But UA pulled off an amazing comeback against No. 17 Washington State to salvage the weekend with a split against the Washington schools.

"Hopefully, this will give us a shot of adrenaline, and I think this match will help us play even better the rest of the season," head coach David Rubio said.

Entering the weekend, the Wildcats had won five of their last six matches, and it looked as though they were beginning to become the team that Rubio envisioned at the beginning of the season.

Arizona (12-8 overall, 7-5 Pacific 10 Conference) also entered its match with the Huskies riding high with confidence to go along with a 10-match win streak against UW.

However, that all changed.

The Huskies came into Tucson and manhandled the Wildcats in every aspect of the game. Arizona played its worse match of the season and was swept 0-3 (25-30, 27-30 18-30).

The next night, the Cougars came into town looking to do the same thing, and they were a few points away from doing so.

The first two games saw WSU (16-7, 6-7 Pac-10) hit a scorching .500 as it managed to hold the Wildcats to a .058 hitting percentage.

Senior Lisa Rutledge and freshman Kim Glass have been the offensive leaders for the Wildcats this season and they combined for just 10 kills on 34 swings in the first two games.

The difference in the first two games was that Arizona had 18 attack errors and WSU only had one.

With UA being dominated in both sides, Washington State jumped out to a 0-2 (18-30, 14-30) lead, and the Wildcats were on the verge of being embarrassed at home, two nights in a row.

"WSU was bombing serves," Rubio said. "They played great defense and they played better then I have ever seen them play. I told the team that they had to believe that they can beat them, and that is what happened."

With Arizona going through the motions, they could have called it a night.

"We were not having fun out there in the first two games," Glass said. "We came together and just talked about going out there and playing our game. I knew once we began to have fun that we could win."

WSU came out in game three and won the first two points, and it seemed that the night was going to come to a close for the Wildcats.

But then the match took a sudden turn.

Arizona bounced back and took control of the third game with a 22-16 lead.

With momentum finally on UA's side, WSU fought back and tied the match at 25.

With the match on the line, Glass took control and Arizona won game three 30-28 to extend the match.

Glass struggled in the first two games with only five kills, but she came alive with 11 kills in the third game.

"She showed that when the game is on the line, that you can count on her," Rubio said. "She wasn't passing well in the first two games and I think she took it as a personal challenge to pass better. Once that happened, she began to play her game."

With the crowd of 989 fired up, and WSU looking deflated, Arizona scorched the Cougars 30-16 to force a fifth and decisive game.

Both teams came out and played their games, but Arizona wasn't going to let its comeback be stopped short.

The Wildcats won game five 15-13 to win the match, 3-2 (18-30, 14-30, 30-28, 30-16, 15-13).

Offensively, Glass, Rutledge and freshman Bre Ladd led the way for Arizona.

Glass finished with a match-high 28 kills and 16 digs, and Ladd and Rutledge added 16 and 13 respectively.

"Lisa Rutledge really played exceptionally," Rubio said. "She was really aggressive and she never backed down."

Sophomore Kelli Mulvany added a career-high 24 digs as well.

The real story in the match was Arizona's ability to contain the Cougar offensive attack that hit .500 in the first two games with only one attack error.

WSU finished the match with a .216 hitting percentage and 20 attack errors.

This is the second time this season that Arizona has come back at home after being down 0-2. Earlier in the season, the Wildcats were in a similar situation as they were down 0-2 to No. 6 Stanford.

That was a big win for the Arizona program, but this win against the Cougars is even more significant, according to Rubio.

"I told my assistants that every team goes through its cycles," Rubio said. "Even though we have been playing well, I felt that we needed to go through one more cycle and face some adversity."