Volleyball hosts Fresno Pacific in exhibition match Tuesday

Tuesday, August 29

Fresno, CA

7:00 PM

Fresno State

Fresno Pacific (Exhibition)

Tickets

Volleyball hosts Fresno Pacific in exhibition match Tuesday

8/28/2017 4:02:00 PM | Women's Volleyball

Match Notes (PDF)

By: Andrew Tomsky / Assistant Director of Communications

Fresno Pacific at Fresno State
Aug. 29, 2017 • 7:00 PM • Fresno, Calif. • Save Mart Center
Video: Mountain West Network
Live: Live Stats • Live Updates on Twitter (@FresnoStateVB)
Series History: Fresno Pacific leads 7-3
Next Up: at North Harbour Marriott Invitational (Portland, Ore.) • vs. Alabama State/Portland/Oregon State • Sept. 1-2

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Scouting Fresno Pacific
• Fresno Pacific will be playing its first match of the season on Tuesday, though the team did have an alumni match on Saturday.
• An NCAA Div. II institution, Fresno Pacific was picked to finish 10th among the 14 teams in the PacWest Conference in the preseason conference coaches' poll.
• FPU finished 11-13 overall and 9-11 in the PacWest last season but did end the year on a three-match winning streak to finish in 8th place in its conference.
• The Sunbirds returned just six student-athletes from their 2016 roster. Like the Bulldogs, Fresno Pacific is heavy on juniors with six of their 12 players in the junior class.
• Fresno Pacific is 7-3 all-time against Fresno State, but those seven wins all came when the Sunbirds were a national power as an NAIA institution. Fresno State has won the last four meetings between the teams, including a 3-0 sweep in an exhibition last year.

Solid Start
• Fresno State began its 2017 season in the Bay Area last weekend and came away with a pair of wins over Utah Valley and San Francisco.
• The Bulldogs won their season opener, beating Utah Valley 3-1 in San Jose. The team won its season opener for the seventh time in 10 seasons under head coach Lauren Netherby-Sewell and opened its season at 2-0 for the second consecutive year.
• With a 3-0 sweep at San Francisco on Saturday, the 'Dogs earned a sweep in their first true road match of the season for the third consecutive year, having won 3-0 at Boston College last season and at Western Carolina in 2015.

Taylor Terrific
• Through the first week of the 2017 season junior Taylor Slover ranks second in all of NCAA Div. I averaging 6.60 points per set. She is 7th in the nation with 5.20 kills per set and ninth with 0.90 service aces per set.
• Slover is averaging nearly one kill per set more than any other Mountain West player, as San Jose State's Giulia Gavio is second at 4.22 kills per set. The second highest service aces per set in the league is 0.78.
• In her first match as a full six-rotation player, Slover had career highs of 25 kills and 6 service aces in the 'Dogs season-opening 3-1 win over Utah Valley. She tied for the second most aces in a match in program history and the 5th most kills in a four-set match.
• Slover accounted for 66.0 points last week while no other Bulldog accounted for more than 25.0 points over the three matches.

Atop the Mountain
• Fresno State leads the Mountain West in hitting percentage (.263), ranks second in the conference in service aces per set (2.40), and is third in digs per set (13.20).
• Despite being second in the league in service aces the Bulldogs rank seventh in all of NCAA Div. I in the category. Utah State is 6th nationally with 2.50 aces per set.

Welcome Aboard
• Of the 15 student-athletes on the Bulldog roster, 12 saw action over the first weekend of the season.
• At least one player made their Bulldog debut in each match; Emily Dzubak, Reagan Leonard, and Pumehana Nedlic made their debuts in the season opener on Friday, Montez Uigaese saw her first court time in the first match on Saturday, and Jessica Gilbert played for the first time as a Bulldog in the second game on Saturday.

Aces Aplenty
• After leading the Mountain West and ranking 15th in NCAA Div. I averaging 1.67 service aces per set last season, the 'Dogs are averaging 2.40 aces per set so far this year.
• Fresno State totaled 24 aces in their first three matches (10 sets) of the season while allowing just 13 aces from its opponents.
• The team's 180 total aces in 2016, which were 27th most in Div. I, were the most for the program since the 2002 season.

Hardly at Home
• Thirteen of Fresno State's first 15 matches of the season will be played outside of Fresno.
• The team has eight road matches and five neutral site matches scheduled over the first month of the season with just two home dates prior to Sept. 28.
• The team has just one official home match prior to the star of conference play, against CSU Bakersfield on Sept. 5. The meeting with Fresno Pacific will be an exhibition.
• Eight of the team's 11 non-conference road matches will take place in California with just one flight trip to Portland.

Starting Strong
• The Bulldogs are looking to replicate their early season success in the 2016 season in which they had a 9-2 non-conference mark.
• In 2016 Fresno State went undefeated to win both the Boston College Invitational and Incarnate Word Invitational.
• Over 11 non-conference matches the squad had six 3-0 sweeps while hitting .257 as a team and averaging 13.00 kills, 2.21 service aces, 12.36 digs, and 2.08 blocks per set.

Juniority
• Fresno State's 2017 roster features nine juniors among 15 total student-athletes.
• The junior class accounts for nearly two-thirds of the roster while no other class has more than three members.
• Among the nine juniors are five returning players and four newcomers, as all four of the team's new transfers this year joined the program as juniors.

Alumnae Match
• Fresno State kicked off its 2017 season with the annual Alumnae Match on Aug. 19, earning the victory at 3-1 in a 3-2 final against many star Bulldogs from previous seasons. The match was predetermined to go a full five sets.
• Junior Taylor Slover led all players in the match with 16 kills while also contributing eight digs and two blocks. Junior middle blocker Haile Watson tallied 10 kills and a team-high seven blocks while hitting .304 and sophomore Madelyn Halteman had a double-double with 52 assists and 14 digs along with three blocks. Senior Jacqueline Hutcheson recorded a team-high 17 digs.
• After the Alumnae took the first set, the 2017 team won the next three 26-24, 25-11, and 25-17.

Super Server
• Senior Jacqueline Hutcheson led the Mountain West and ranked ninth in all of NCAA Div. I with 53 service aces last season.
• No other Mountain West player had more than 40 aces while her 0.49 aces per set ranked 11th in the nation and was 0.14 better than any other MW athlete.
• The 0.49 aces per set ranked fifth most in a season in program history and the 53 total aces tied for seventh, with both marks the best by a Bulldog since the 1995 season.

Senior Leaders
• The Bulldogs will rely on their two seniors, libero Jacqueline Hutcheson and middle blocker Lauren Torres, to lead the team.
• In addition to her serving acumen Hutcheson also averaged 1.83 digs per set last season and was one of just three 'Dogs to play in all 108 sets.
• Torres started 25 matches last year and ranked second on the team in points and blocks while averaging 1.67 kills per set. She was one of seven Bulldogs to top 100 kills during the 2016 season.

Her First Decade
• Bulldog head coach Lauren Netherby-Sewell is in her 10th season leading the program.
• She is the third coach in program history to complete a decade at the helm, joining Leilani Overstreet (20 seasons) and Lindy Vivas (14 seasons) in that elite company.
• Netherby-Sewell is in her 13th season overall as a head coach as she led Hofstra for two seasons with a combined 43-19 record before joining the Bulldogs in 2008.

In With the New
• Fresno State has six newcomers on its 2017 roster to go with nine returning members.
• Among the new additions are four transfers, three of which (Karina Felipe, Pumehana Nedlic, and Emily Dzubak) came from junior colleges and one (Jessica Gilbert) who transferred from Div. I Eastern Washington.
• The team also has two true freshmen, Sydney Lostumo and Reagan Leonard, who both joined the program from the Phoenix, Ariz. metropolitan area.
• Gilbert has previously played with junior Haile Watson, who was also at Eastern Washington in 2015.

Preseason Prognostication
• The Mountain West coaches voted Fresno State to finish 10th in the preseason conference poll. The Bulldogs earned 29 points in the poll, coming in well ahead of Air Force (14).
• Colorado State received eight first place votes and 98 total points to be picked to win the league ahead of defending champion Boise State, which garnered three first-place votes and 93 points to be selected second.

On the Global Stage
• Junior Haile Watson represented the Bulldogs as a member of the Mountain West All-Star team at the European Global Challenge in July in Croatia.
• Watson helped lead the MW team to the championship match, giving the conference its best finish in the four years it has fielded a team. The squad earned wins over European pro teams as well as other teams comprised of US student-athletes before falling to the USA Volleyball College National Team in the final.
• Watson is one of two current Bulldogs that have competed in the tournament as junior Jessica Gilbert played in the 2015 and 2016 editions while at Eastern Washington.

100 Club
• The Bulldogs had seven players record 100 kills last year for the first time since the 2011 season. The team had five 100-kill players in 2015.
• Fresno State's top two in kills in 2016, Aleisha Coates and Carly Scarbrough, are both departed but the five others to top 100 kills return in 2017.

Academic Success
• In July the Bulldogs earned the AVCA Team Academic Award for the eighth consecutive season, the longest active streak among all MW programs.
• Instituted in the 1992-93 academic year, the award is given to teams with a 3.30 or better cumulative GPA.
• Along with the team recognition, 10 Bulldogs earned Academic All-MW honors following the 2016 season.
• Additionally, seven 'Dogs were named MW Scholar-Athletes for the 2016-17 academic year posting 3.5 or higher cumulative grade point averages.

Welcome Back
• Fresno State welcomed back former Bulldog Holly Franks as the team's director of operations entering the 2017 season.
• A former 'Dog who was named the Mountain West Newcomer of the Year in 2013, Franks came back to Fresno State after spending two seasons as the head coach at Porterville College in Porterville, Calif.
• Franks, who played one season with the Bulldogs after transferring from Cal Poly, played a year internationally for Svedala Volley in Sweden in 2014 before returning to coach at Porterville.

Doubling Up
• The Bulldogs face two of their non-conference opponents twice, facing both San Francisco and CSU Bakersfield two times among the 13 non-conference matches.
• Fresno State plays at San Francisco twice (Aug. 25 and Sept. 9) and has a home-and-home with CSU Bakersfield on consecutive Tuesdays (Sept. 5 and Sept. 12).
• The 'Dogs will also play two matches this season in Spartan Gym at San Jose State, having played Utah Valley in a neutral site match there on Aug. 25 before facing the Spartans in San Jose on Oct. 26.

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