ASU Volleyball: Sun Devils end season with five-set loss to Arizona

(Photo via Brendan O’Keeffe/WCSN)

TEMPE – The 2022 season finale for Arizona State women’s volleyball was indicative of its season as a whole – a good start that gave the team momentum and hope, followed by immense disappointment.

After going up 2-0 on rival Arizona, the Sun Devils would go on to lose three straight sets to be reverse swept (25-23, 25-23, 23-25, 20-25, 11-15). ASU’s season-long serving issues reared its ugly head for the final time, as the Sun Devils had 14 service errors and only six aces.

The Sun Devils now end the season with a 13-19 record, losing seven of its last nine games. The Wildcats’ win puts them over .500 on the year, finishing at 16-15.

The night started off on a positive note for ASU, as it celebrated the seniors and their accomplishments as Sun Devils. Before the match, setter Shannon Shields, libero Annika Larson-Nummer and middle blocker Brooke Boiseau were given flowers from head coach Sanja Tomasevic and a standing ovation from the Desert Financial Arena crowd. Senior outside hitter Iman Isanovic, who announced after the match that she will be returning for another year, talked about how special it was to see her peers recognized.

“This group of seniors holds a special place in my heart, [with] Shannon being my best friend off the court,” Isanovic said. “She has been here since my second semester of freshman year. We have been roommates forever. She is just like my little sister, and seeing her on a big night having all of the lights directed towards her was really nice because I think she’s a shining light of this program.“

The ceremony seemed to fire the Sun Devils up as they started the first set on an 11-5 scoring run. Senior outside hitter Marta Levinska found success against the Wildcat defense and sustained her play throughout the entire match, tying a career-high 25 kills along with 11 digs and five blocks.

“She’s been playing amazing the last six to seven weeks,“ Tomasevic said. “It’s been fun to see her grow, and it’s been fun to watch her develop as a blocker, as a defender, not just as a hitter. … She’s turned around in all aspects of her game.”

The Wildcats were able to climb out of their early deficit and trim the lead to one when ASU had set point. Shields had other plans though, recording her only kill of the match to win it 25-23.

The second set followed a similar trajectory. After a closely contested set, ASU was able to win seven of eight points to give itself an 18-12 lead. Arizona was once again able to fight back and make it a 24-23 score, but this time Levinska was the one to clamp its momentum, ending the set with a cross-court kill.

The third set would also end 25-23, but this time it was the Wildcats who would be on top. Senior outside hitter Sofia Maldonado Diaz and 5th-year senior middle blocker Zyonna Fellows were instrumental in Arizona’s success. Maldonado Diaz ended the night with 20 kills and 11 digs, while Fellows tallied 10 kills and a whopping 13 blocks.

The Wildcats quickly pounced on their momentum in the fourth set by getting out to a 10-4 lead. Tomasevic called two timeouts during the set but to no avail, as Arizona’s lead eventually ballooned to 10. Despite a late Sun Devil run in which they scored seven of eight points, it wasn’t enough, and the Wildcats won it 25-20.

In the fifth and final set, ASU suddenly lost its confidence when serving. The Sun Devils served 12 times in the set and committed a service error on five of them. The mistakes were too much to overcome, and ASU lost the set 11-15.

“Our serving totally tanked after [the fourth set],” Tomasevic said. “We were serving tentative, scared [and] when you do that, you tend to miss serves … We’ll go through practices where we serve hundreds of serves and making sure that each one of those serves counts as a serve in the fifth set against U of A at the end of the season. I thought our serving definitely tanked, which made our blocking a lot harder and everything else after that kind of fell off.”

Even with the gut-wrenching loss to end the season, Tomasevic took solace in knowing that her squad is more than just a group of volleyball players.

“Obviously, I would have wished to send [the seniors] off with a win. That would have been a better way to end this,” Tomasevic said. “But I’m really proud of them and the impact they left on the program and the kind of women they’re becoming … I think those girls know how to work in a team, they know how to compete and it’s been a pleasure and privilege to watch them grow.”