On Friday night in Seattle, Rutgers had five set points in the fourth set against Washington and lost it 31-33. Two days later in Eugene, they faced four Oregon set points in the second and won it 32-30.
It was also the last good set Rutgers played. The Scarlet Knights lost 13-25, 32-30, 18-25, 12-25 to No. 11 Oregon on Sunday afternoon at Matthew Knight Arena, a match that took 129 minutes in front of 2,632, and they scored 30 points across the third and fourth sets combined, two fewer than they scored in the second alone.
Rutgers hit .068 with 46 kills and 36 attack errors on 148 swings. Oregon hit .390 with 58 kills and 12 errors on 118. The Ducks out-blocked Rutgers 9-1, out-dug it 54-43 and sided out at 67.1 percent to Rutgers’ 48.1.
Rutgers handed Oregon 35 points on errors, 27 of them on attack errors nobody blocked, and got 22 back. Oregon earned 70 points on its own. Rutgers earned 53.
And for once, the serve had nothing to do with it.
Rutgers fixed the serve, and the problem moved.
Never Level in the First & Four Set Points Saved in the Second
The first set had no ties and no lead changes. Oregon led 1-6 before Rutgers had a kill, with a Malia Romes attack error and a Brooke Baldwin set that went nowhere in the middle of it.
Aspen Maxwell came on with Lily Bolen and killed three times off Bolen sets, but Rutgers trailed 5-12 at its first timeout and 7-15 at the media timeout. Dalia Vrlan served three straight from 8-16 to 8-19, two of them Rutgers attack errors by Romes and Karis Willow, and Oregon led by 11 at 9-20. Reese Sheppard closed it from the line with an ace on Kenzie Dyrstad at 13-23, a Skylar George attack error and Sjakkie Donkers’ sixth kill of the set.
Rutgers hit .000 in the first on seven kills and seven errors. Oregon hit .464 and never had a ball blocked.
The second started the same way, with Marina Crownover serving the first three points on an Alanah Clemente kill and two Willow attack errors.
Then Willow turned it. She went to the line at 4-5, drew a Valentina Vaulet attack error, aced Donkers for 6-5, Rutgers’ first lead of the match, and stayed there for a Maxwell kill off Bolen at 7-5. Baldwin served the next run, three straight from 9-8 to 12-8, with a Zharia Harris-Waddy kill and a Romes kill off her own sets and an ace on Maila Ribeiro that forced an Oregon timeout. Rutgers led 15-9 at the media timeout.
Vaulet served Oregon from 19-15 to 19-18 around a Rutgers timeout, then missed her next serve. Romes killed twice to keep Rutgers ahead 22-20, and then Donkers went to the line. Vaulet and Vrlan stuffed Romes for 22-22, Clemente and Vrlan stuffed Imani Howell for 22-23, and Oregon had its first lead since Willow’s ace.
Rutgers called time. Willow and Howell stuffed Clemente to tie it at 23, the only Rutgers block of the match, and on the next rally Bolen missed her serve.
Oregon had set point at 23-24.
The Ducks had three more after that. Maxwell killed off Bolen to save the first. Clemente made it 24-25 and Howell killed off Bolen to save the second. Harris-Waddy put Rutgers ahead 26-25 for its first set point. Alaina Pollard answered out of an Oregon timeout, Clemente hit out for a second Rutgers set point at 27-26, Donkers answered again, and George’s attack error at 27-28 gave Oregon its third.
Harris-Waddy saved that one off Bolen. Kaila Kalama-Bajet killed off Kenzie Dyrstad for a third Rutgers set point at 29-28, Vrlan tied it, and Donkers’ kill at 29-30 gave the Ducks their fourth. George killed off Bolen for 30-30. With Harris-Waddy serving, Howell put down 31-30, and Kalama-Bajet ended it off Bolen, 32-30.
Kalama-Bajet swung twice all afternoon. Both were kills, and the second won the set.
Twelve ties, seven lead changes, and Rutgers hit .261 on 20 kills, the only set it out-killed Oregon. The Ducks hit .283 and missed four serves.
Oregon Closes the Third 11-4 & Marina Crownover Serves 10 Straight
The third was the only other set Rutgers led. Karis Willow aced for 5-3 before missing her next serve, and Skylar George aced Ribeiro for 9-6, Rutgers’ biggest lead of the set.
Vrlan sided out at 9-7 and Donkers erased the rest from the service line. Willow hit out, Marlee Arrington killed, and Arrington and Vrlan stuffed Romes for 9-10, four straight Oregon points. Romes answered off Baldwin and Vrlan hit out for 11-10, which was the last Rutgers lead of the match. Clemente killed twice for 11-12, and the teams were level again at 14 on Willow’s second ace of the set.
Oregon scored 11 of the last 15 points.
Pollard killed for 14-15 at the media timeout, and Ribeiro came out of it with a Howell attack error and an ace on Maxwell. Crownover served the Ducks from 16-19 to 16-21 on two solo stuffs, Donkers on Romes and Vrlan on Howell, around a Rutgers timeout. Willow killed off Kenzie Dyrstad for 18-21, and Donkers served out the set on three Rutgers mistakes, a Romes attack error, a Willow attack error after another timeout and a Baldwin set that went nowhere.
Seven ties, three lead changes, Rutgers at .000 again on 10 kills, 10 errors and 31 swings, and Oregon at .409.
The fourth had two ties and no lead changes, because Rutgers never led it. Crownover served two Rutgers attack errors to open the set, and Arrington killed twice to make it 2-5. Harris-Waddy killed on consecutive rallies to tie it at 7, and Romes found the floor to tie it at 8.
George went to the line at 8-8 and Willow hit out. Crownover went back to the line at 8-9.
She did not leave it until 8-19.
Clemente killed off her set. Donkers and Vrlan stuffed Romes. Addison Wiemann, who had just come on, hit out, and Rutgers took a timeout at 8-12. Harris-Waddy hit out, Donkers killed twice going into the media timeout, Romes hit out, Clemente and Vrlan stuffed Wiemann, Donkers killed again, and Crownover aced Kenzie Dyrstad for 8-19. Rutgers used its second timeout of the run, and Crownover missed the next serve.
That was 10 straight Oregon points on one server, five of them Rutgers attack errors and two of those stuffs, and 11 straight counting the Willow error that gave Crownover the ball.
Harris-Waddy aced Ribeiro for 10-19, Pollard and Arrington stuffed Maxwell for match point at 11-24, and after Maxwell saved one, Clemente ended it at 12-25.
Rutgers hit minus-.054 in the fourth on nine kills, 11 errors and 37 swings. Oregon hit .500 with one attack error in the set.
Stats Breakdown
Romes led everyone in Scarlet with 12 kills, 10 of them off Baldwin sets, but also had 10 attack errors on a team-high 38 swings, .053, and four of those errors were stuffs. Howell had eight kills on 19 swings with three errors, .263, plus a block assist for 8.5 points. Maxwell added eight kills off the bench, every one of them off a Bolen set, with four errors on 21 swings, .190.
Harris-Waddy was the most efficient Rutgers attacker who swung more than twice, six kills and one error on 12 attempts for .417, with an ace and three digs. Willow finished at minus-.100 with six kills and nine errors on 30 swings, and George at minus-.095 with four kills and six errors on 21, though George added seven digs and an ace and was not aced once. Wiemann swung twice in the fourth and both were errors.
The setting split was Bolen 20 and Baldwin 16, with four from Kenzie Dyrstad, who also led the match with 14 digs.
Donkers was the best player on the floor with 20 kills and one error on 40 swings, .475, plus 11 digs, two total blocks and a match-high 21.5 points. Clemente added 17 kills at .375 for 18 points, and Vrlan hit .562 with 10 kills on 16 swings and a match-high six total blocks. Crownover set 47 of Oregon’s 51 assists. Vaulet hit minus-.167 and missed four serves, and that was about the extent of what went wrong for the Ducks.
What Didn’t Work (and One Thing That Did)
Hitting, first and most obviously.
Rutgers took 30 more swings than Oregon and finished with 12 fewer kills. Nine of the 36 attack errors were stuffs, six of them with Vrlan’s hands on the ball, and the other 27 came with no block involved at all. Rutgers hit .000 in the first, .000 in the third and minus-.054 in the fourth, and Romes, Willow and George combined for 22 kills and 25 errors on 89 attempts.
Side out is the second. Rutgers gave up three aces all afternoon, two to Kenzie Dyrstad and one to Maxwell, and for once none of them landed on George. The pass was fine, and Rutgers still sided out at 48.1 percent, because the swing did not finish. Crownover’s 10-point run had one ace in it. The other nine came out of rallies Rutgers had already received, four Oregon kills, two stuffs and three Rutgers attack errors.
Then there is Karis Willow. She had three aces, half of Rutgers’ total, including the one that gave Rutgers its first lead of the match, and she was half of the only Rutgers block, at 23-23 with the second set on the line. Despite this, she also hit minus-.100 on 30 swings with nine attack errors, two to open the second set, one to open the fourth and the one on George’s serve at 8-8 that handed Crownover the ball. Her 12 total errors were the most on either side. She is still this team in a single box score line.
The one thing that did work was the serve. Yes, things change quickly!
A month after 34 missed serves in two days in Queens and two nights after 15 at Washington, Rutgers served six aces against five errors at No. 11 Oregon, with Willow serving three of them. Oregon missed 11, four of them by Vaulet.
It was nowhere close to enough. For most of this season Rutgers has been able to point at the service line. On Sunday, they out-served a top-15 team and lost by 30 points, which leaves the attack with nowhere to hide.
Rutgers is 10-10 and 1-7 in the Big Ten and finally comes home, with No. 22 Michigan State on Friday at 7 p.m. and Illinois on Saturday at 7 p.m. at Jersey Mike’s Arena.
That makes five straight losses, every one of them in four sets.
On Friday, Rutgers lost a set that they had five chances to win. On Sunday, they won one Oregon had four chances to take, and then scored 30 points in the next two.