Cal Ends USC's Season With 3-0 Sweep

Thursday, December 16

Kansas City, Mo.

6:00 PM

USC

Cal

Alex Jupiter had a team-high eight kills in Thursday's 3-0 loss to California in the NCAA national semifinal in Kansas City. USC has made six NCAA Final Four appearances in the last 11 seasons.

Cal Ends USC's Season With 3-0 Sweep

December 16, 2010 | Women's Volleyball

Dec. 16, 2010

Final Stats

KANSAS CITY - Tarah Murrey had 23 kills Thursday as the California Golden Bears swept the USC Women of Troy (25-14, 25-17, 25-20) in the NCAA national semifinal at the Sprint Center. Cal advances to the national championship on Saturday to play three-time defending national champion Penn State.

USC, which was making its sixth Final Four appearance in the last 11 seasons, finishes the season with a 29-5 record. The Women of Troy had their nine-match winning streak snapped tonight, but concluded the season by winning 15 of their last 17 matches.

Cal (30-3) took advantage of a young Trojan squad from the start, hitting .297 in the match as USC hit a season-low .107 in front of 12,091 fans.

Adrienne Gehan hit .393 for Cal with 14 kills to offset Murrey's performance. Senior setter Carli Lloyd had 39 assists and 16 blocks in the win.

Junior All-American Alex Jupiter led USC with eight kills and 12 digs, hitting .182. Sophomore Katie Fuller had great production for the team, hitting .400 on seven kills (7-1-15) while junior All-American Kendall Bateman had 28 assists, nine digs and three blocks. Junior All-American middle blocker Lauren Williams and freshman outside Falyn Fonoimoana had six kills each, but Fonoimoana had a difficult night with 11 hitting errors for a negative .147.

The Golden Bears got off to a good start with an 8-2 run to open the match. Adrienne Gehan closed out the run of seven straight points as Cal held the 11-2 lead. Murrey helped keep the pressure as the 8-2 run made it a commanding 18-6 score for Cal. The deficit was too much for the Trojans, who registered 10 hitting errors and two service errors in the set. With a negative .027 hitting mark, it was the first time this season that USC hit negative in a set.

Murrey was the factor of five straight points in the second set for the 7-3 advantage. USC got within one at 8-7, but it was Gehan's turn to lead the Golden Bears with four kills during a streak of seven straight. Two serving errors late in the set by USC handed the 2-0 lead in the match to Cal. Both teams played evenly in the third set, but it was Murrey again who recorded the kill from the back row as the Bears broke away from an 18-16 lead to provide the cushion needed to earn the sweep.

Notes: USC loses only three seniors (Geena Urango, Zoe Garrett and Kimmee Roleder) and will return every player in the starting lineup next season...this was only the second time this season that USC was swept (Nov. 7 at Stanford)...USC entered tonight's match having hit .317 as a team in its last nine matches, hitting over .300 seven times...Alex Jupiter finishes the season with 532 kills, good for fourth on USC's single-season list...Jupiter's 625.0 points place her third on USC's single-season list...Kendall Bateman's 1,567 assists place her second on USC's single-season list...freshman libero Natalie Hagglund finished with 497 digs this season, putting her seventh on USC's single-season list.

CAL   25-25-25USC   14-17-20
Records: California (30-3), USC (29-5)Kills: Tarah Murrey 23 (CAL), Alex Jupiter 8 (USC)
Team:    CAL USC1   .233    -.0272   .316    .0833   .320    .229Match   .297    .107