Close doesn't count in volleyball, at least not for the UAA volleyball team. So don't bother wondering if the Seawolves gained even a small measure of satisfaction Friday by pushing two of the nation's top 10 teams to five sets before losing.
"Uh, no, not really," said UAA coach Chris Green. "We want to win matches. We don't want to come close."
The Seawolves lost to eighth-ranked UC-San Diego and to 10th-ranked Metro State of Denver on the first day of action in an eight-team tournament at Western Oregon. San Diego beat the Seawolves 25-15, 25-23, 24-26, 22-25, 15-12 in a morning match, and Metro State beat them 32-34, 25-14, 25-21, 23-25, 15-10.
UAA plays twice more today in Monmouth, Ore., and it won't get any easier -- its first opponent is second-ranked Cal State- San Bernardino.
"We're up for the challenge," Green said. "This shows the girls how good they have to be to compete nationally."
A couple years ago, taking a top-10 team to five sets might have qualified as a moral victory for UAA but not anymore. Green, who is in his third season at UAA, needed two seasons to transform the Seawolves from a losing program to one that began this season ranked 24th among NCAA Division II teams.
The Seawolves, who slipped to 2-2, are playing without Cortney Lundberg, a senior middle hitter who led the Great Northwest Athletic Conference in blocks last season but missed the trip to Oregon because of an injury suffered in practice this week.
"It was tough not having Cortney on the court," Green said, adding that the key in both matches was serving and passing.
Specifically, San Diego and Metro State both used good serves to keep UAA from making the critical first passes needed to get an offense going. UAA didn't serve nearly as well, Green said, which helped both opponents click on offense.
"We didn't pass as well as we needed to, and we didn't serve as well as we needed to," he said. "They both were running their offense all night and we seemed to be scrambling most of the time, because we didn't have a lot of good passes. Their offenses were running on all cylinders because they passed so well, but a lot of that was our serving."
Against San Diego, the Seawolves prevailed in both blocking and hitting. They had 14 blocks to the Tritons' 7 and outhit them .237 to .184. But San Diego served 13 aces to UAA's two.
McKenzie Moss pounded 16 kills, Jackie Matthisen had 15 kills and 16 digs and Lee Golden added 10 kills for the Seawolves against the Tritons. Marie Borowikow and freshman Robyn Burton each had a hand in eight blocks.
In the Metro State match, Moss again had 16 kills, Matthisen had 13 and Borowikow 11. In the wild first set, a kill by Moss gave UAA a 33-32 lead and an attack error by Metro State provided set-point for the Seawolves.
Find Beth Bragg online at adn.com/contact/bbragg or call 257-4335.
By BETH BRAGG
bbragg@adn.com