FULLERTON, Calif. - Cal State Fullerton remained winless on the season after suffering a sweep at the hands of Cal Poly 3-0 (25-17, 25-18, 25-20) in a Big West Conference match Saturday night at Titan Gym.
The Titans (0-26, 0-14) matched the worst start in program history with Saturday night's defeat, tying the 1994 squad that lost its first 26 matches and finished the season 1-28. The Titans will have two more chances to score a win when they take on Long Beach State on the road on Friday followed by the season finale against CSUN at Titan Gym on Saturday.
The Mustangs (19-6, 11-3) recorded their second sweep of the weekend after defeating UC Riverside on Friday night. They had six different players record an assist on the night and tallied 51 digs on defense.
Katelyn Nielsen led the Titans offense for the second straight night, tallying eight on 19 attempts with three errors for a .263 attacking percentage. Kandace Thomas hammered down seven kills with just one error and hit at a .462 clip while Summer Kerins added five. Mackenzie Olsen finished with 29 assists and five digs with one block. Megann Delgado added four kills, seven digs and four blocks.
Raeann Greisen led the Mustangs with 16 kills on a .414 attacking percentage (16-4-29) and freshman Adlee Van Winden added 13 with eight digs. Nicole Kessler (14) and Katherine Brouker (13) combined for 27 of the team's 51 digs.
The Titans got off to a good start, taking a 15-10 lead on the Mustangs. But Cal Poly closed the set out on a 15-2 scoring run, using a pair of 7-0 runs in that stretch to secure the set and take the 1-0 lead.
Both teams went back and forth early in the second as the set featured five ties and a pair of lead changes. An attacking error by Delgado switched the lead for the second and final time in favor of the Mustangs, who went on a 9-3 run to take a six-point lead. The Titans fought back with five of the next six points to trail 22-18 at one point and forced a Mustangs timeout. But Cal Poly got kills from Van Winden and Greisen along with a Fullerton error after the timeout to take the second set and a commanding 2-0 lead.
The third set featured 10 of the match's 17 ties, but the Titans could never get over the hump as the Mustangs fended off the Titans and used a 7-0 run to break a string of five ties and take a 23-16 advantage. The Titans fought off three match points thanks to three straight kills from Nielsen but Alexis Clewis smashed down her fourth and final kill of the night to secure the match for the Mustangs.
