University of Washington
Arizona State
Morrison and Perry Lead Huskies Past ASU
November 02, 2007 | Volleyball
Nov. 2, 2007
TEMPE, Ariz. - Christal Morrison and Becky Perry combined for 31 kills to lead the No. 4 Washington Huskies to a sweep of Arizona State on Friday night in Pac-10 volleyball action. The Huskies (22-1, 11-1 Pac-10) swept their 19th match of the season, winning by scores of 30-20, 30-22, 30-25.
Morrison led all players with 17 kills, hit .500 and had eight digs, while Perry chipped in 14 kills, hit .545 and led the UW with six total blocks. Jessica Swarbrick added 10 kills and hit .353 for the Huskies.
Huskies head coach Jim McLaughlin praised the play of both Morrison and freshman setter Jenna Hagglund.
"She [Morrison] had a great night and had some great swings. To hit over .500 against a good team - a team that's been hot - and to do it on the road, it just shows that she is one of the best, if not the best, outside hitter in the country."
Hagglund finished the night with 51 assists and led the Huskies in digs with a season-high 14. It was the third time in the past four matches that she has tallied double-figures in digs.
"She's got good arm work, good feet and she sees things really well," commented McLaughlin on Hagglund. "She had a tremendous week of practice, and to play the way she did these past two matches just showed how much she improved over the week."
McLaughlin, who has his team in first place in the Pac-10, feels the Huskies are playing their best volleyball of the season right now.
"We're playing good for longer segments of time and staying on task longer. It's a good thing to see. We need to see it going into November."
The Huskies started strong against Arizona State, hitting .571 and pounding out 22 kills in the first game.
"We were good from the get-go," said McLaughlin. "We talked about that before the match. We nice a nice job passing the ball and Jenna did a nice job of keeping everyone involved. We just had a nice rhythm tonight."
Stevie Mussie and Alesha Deesing both had good all-around performances for the Huskies on the night. Mussie had eight kills, seven digs and five blocks, while Deesing finished with seven kills, a .364 hitting percentage and four total blocks.
Despite having their lowest hitting percentage in the final game, the Huskies never trailed and scored the first six points of game three. Deesing gave the UW a 10-3 lead on a kill, and later an attack error by the Sun Devils' Sarah Reaves gave Washington its biggest lead of the night at 27-16.
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Catch the No. 4 Huskies take on No. 5 Stanford and No. 8 Cal next week. Tickets are on sale through the Husky Ticket Office at 206-543-2200 or by clicking here to purchase online.
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Washington limited ASU (14-12, 6-7 Pac-10) to just a .156 hitting mark, which is the 21st time this season a team has failed to hitter higher than .200 against the Huskies. Washington had 14 team blocks on the night to just seven for the Sun Devils.
The Huskies return home next week for two crucial Pac-10 matches against No. 5 Stanford and No. 8 California. First up is Stanford (22-2), which sits one game back of the Huskies in the conference standings at 11-2, on Thursday, Nov. 8. The next night, Washington takes on a Golden Bears (19-5, 9-4 Pac-10) squad that handed the UW its only loss earlier this season in Berkeley. Both matches are set for 7 p.m. at Bank of America Arena.
NOTES: Washington has won 11 in a row over ASU and leads the all-time series 30-18 ... Swarbrick had a perfect 1.000 hitting percentage in the first game, tallying six kills on six attempts ... Washington had just one service ace on the night, its lowest output of the season ... the Huskies sided out at 70 percent on the night. ASU sided out at just 52 percent ... Tamari Miyashiro added eight digs for the UW ... three of Mussie's five blocks were solo blocks ... Morrison needs 84 more kills to become the Huskies all-time leader in that category ... she also moved up one spot on the career list in digs, passing Courtney Thompson for No. 7. Morrison has 1,071 digs in her career ... Deesing moved up one spot to No. 6 on the career list in total blocks (346) ... Hagglund broke into the career list at No. 10 in assists with 972 so far.
