Wildcats serve up win for Sun Devils

By Arlie Rahn

Arizona Daily Wildcat

Errors are a coach's nightmare. Last Friday night, the Arizona women's volleyball team committed 21 service errors, and consequently lost to Arizona State in three games (14-16, 4-15, 5-15).

The serving game as a whole was a major disappointment for the Wildcats. ASU dominated the serving aspect of the match by recording eight aces to Arizona's one. In addition, the Wildcats had the dubious honor of capturing the service error title, 21-10.

"When you make that many errors, it is very tough to get into a flow in the game," said junior setter Laura Bartsch.

The first game set the tone for the match. In a 46-minute marathon, the Wildcats out-hit the Sun Devils .349 to .129, but committed 13 costly service errors. These errors proved to be the deciding factor as Arizona lost game one, 14-16.

"Losing game one blew some of the wind out of our sails," Bartsch said. "The calls weren't going our way, and we started to worry about things that we couldn't control instead of our serving and other things we could control."

ASU then heated up and claimed the final two games in spite of a few early Wildcat rallies, 15-4 and 15-5.

For the Wildcats, senior Melissa Ferris rocketed 15 kills and recorded a .310 hitting percentage. Laura Bartsch continued her solid play with 37 assists and a .285 hitting percentage.

This weekend, Arizona will be on the road again against Washington State and Washington.

"We are going to have to put Friday's game behind us," Ferris said. "We have two tough games coming up this weekend, and we are going to have to focus on playing as team, something we did not do too well on Friday."

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