The Gaucho women’s volleyball team has had an up-and-down season leading up to their most recent stretch of league games. However, starting out in the league 2-0 was huge as they came to defeat conference rivals Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Cal State Bakersfield this past weekend, moving up to 4-0.

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The first game of the weekend set took place on Friday, Oct. 1, at Cal Poly’s Mott Athletics Center. The Gauchos had no issues dealing with the Mustangs in this go-around as they swept them in three straight sets. While the Mustangs couldn’t finish their attempts to kill, the Gauchos dominated their chances, having a .347 overall kill percentage.

The Gauchos also dominated defensively, having 10 blocks — two more than the Mustangs — and 55 digs, as compared to 34 digs for the Mustangs.

Senior middle blocker Rowan Ennis was a standout player for the Gauchos, having 11 total chances and converting 9 kills while making only 1 error.

Another great performance was turned in by the dependable sophomore middle blocker Deni Wilson, who had 12 attempts and 5 kills, committing no errors.

Moving on to the second game on Saturday, the Gauchos had a hiccup in the second set, but other than that, outperformed Bakersfield.

In the second set of the game, the Gauchos had a zero-kill percentage as they committed 11 errors and 11 kills with their 46 total chances.

The other three sets proved to be no problem for UCSB as they went on to win each of the three sets at 25 points each with no additional set points to win.

Ennis had herself a perfect game with a 0.5 kill percentage, 12 kills in 22 attempts and a mere 1 error.

Freshman outside hitter Michelle Ohwobete had a great game per usual, notching 14 kills to go with a couple of errors in 29 attempts. Ohwobete had the second-most attempts in this game and the most in the first match against Cal Poly.

An area where the Gauchos haven’t been as effective is on the serve as they were outnumbered in both games in the serve aces.

All in all, the Gauchos moved to 8-8 overall on the season, 4-0 in league play and 7-3 in their last 10 games. UCSB’s women’s volleyball team will go on to face Long Beach State on Friday and Cal State Fullerton on Saturday. The Gauchos will go in on a high note while Long Beach State and the Titans each took losses to Hawaii’iin their last conference games and are both 1-3 in conference play.

A version of this article appeared on p. X of the Oct. 7, 2021 print edition of the Daily Nexus.

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