Following two road wins against the Oregon schools, Arizona State (16-12, 8-9 Pac-12) defeated No. 22 Washington State (22-7, 11-6 Pac-12) in four sets (25-23, 25-20, 19-25, 25-21) on senior night.
“It’s a lot of emotions, just crazy heightened,” senior setter Nicole Peterson said following the Sun Devils third-straight win.
Both teams put up a tough fight, and it was a very close match. The Sun Devils won the first two sets – a stark contrast from the last time these two teams played in Pullman – where the Devils came back from a 0-2 deficit to win the match.
Arizona State’s five seniors all contributed greatly to the win, handling multiple rallies and fueling the offense with their varied offensive attacks.
“We should be able to not only be a left side team, we want to set right side, we want to set middles,” head coach Sanja Tomasevic said, “I think our setters did a good job today distributing the ball.”
Senior outside hitter Jada Burse totaled eight kills at a .292 hitting percentage.
Senior outside hitter Ivana Jeremic had an outstanding match with 10 kills at a .310 hitting percentage and even aided the defensive effort with nine digs.
“As long as the ball is up, we don’t care,” senior outside hitter Ivana Jeremic said.
The Cougars went into the locker room to regroup after losing the first two sets. They came back into the third set looking more like a ranked opponent, and eventually won the set.
“We were up 16-9 and it turns into nail biter, so I think it was just kinda like they got mad and are like we’re not losing,” Tomasevic said.
The Sun Devils regained offensive momentum during the fourth set.
“At the end of the day, we came together as a team and just got it done,” Peterson said.
Senior setters Callie Jones and Nicole Peterson played the entirety of the match and ended with 24 and 19 assists, respectively.
Arizona State will host No. 10 Washington (21-5, 12-4 Pac-12) in Tempe on Sunday at 12 p.m. The match can be seen on the ASU live stream via the Pac-12 Networks.
