Women's Volleyball

Women's Volleyball Season Recap

Game action vs. Hawaii (10/25/19)
Photo by Matt Brown.
Posted: Dec 03, 2019

FULLERTON, Calif. - The Cal State Fullerton women's volleyball team had a huge turnaround season finishing the year with a 12-15 overall record, going 4-12 in conference. The 12 total wins is the most for the program since 2012 while the four conference victories is the most since 2013.

Head coach Ashley Preston led the way in her fifth season at the helm of Fullerton doubling the team's win total from the previous and guided the team to a Top 25 national ranking with 17.44 digs per set. She went on to be named Big West Co-Coach of the Year at the end of the season becoming just the second Titan coach to earn the honor.

Freshman Julia Crawford had a phenomenal rookie campaign and was awarded a spot on the All-Big West First Team and Freshman Team. The outside hitter finished the season ranked fourth in the conference with 3.87 kills per set and eighth with 2.89 digs per set. Her 368 kills and 398.5 total points are the most by a Titan since the 2014 season en route to becoming just the ninth Fullerton player to earn a First Team selection and the first since Kayla Neto in 2012.

Savahna Costello had a spectacular junior season receiving a Big West Honorable Mention. The 5'5" libero absolutely dominated the conference leaderboards averaging 5.31 digs per set; a number that ranked 13th in the entire NCAA. Her 531 total digs on the year is the sixth most in Titan single-season history as she posted double-digit digs in every match but two this season. Costello currently ranks sixth all-time in total digs for her career with 1,197.

The season started in Idaho at the Idaho Volleyball Classic where the Titans would sweep the season opener against Eastern Washington. After falling in a tough five-set loss to Illinois-Chicago, Fullerton would bounce back with a victory over the host Vandals beginning a spectacular run through the next two weekends. Julia Crawford and Elizabeth Schuster had outstanding weekends to begin their collegiate careers posting double-doubles in all three matches and earning spots on the All-Tournament Team. Crawford would also go on to earn her first Big West Freshman of the Week award with Savahna Costello joining her as the Defensive Player of the Week.

The team would travel to Chicago the following weekend for the Windy City Invitational hosted by Chicago State where a five-set win over the host Cougars set the tone for the tournament. Winners of back-to-back matches, the Titans would go on to sweep both Western Carolina and Alabama State en route to becoming the Windy City Invitational Champions with a perfect 3-0 record. Costello was named Tournament MVP while Alicia Dennis earned a spot on the All-Tournament Team.

Riding a four-match winning streak, Fullerton would head to Texas for the Wildcat Classic hosted by Abilene Christian. The Titans would make it five-straight victories with their third straight sweep, this time over the host Wildcats. Unfortunately, the streak would end their as North Texas would sweep the Titans the next day. CSF bounced back nicely to end the weekend 2-1 with a five-set win over Prairie View A&M. For the third straight weekend, a pair of Titans would be represented on the All-Tournament Team as Crawford and Felicia Marshall earned spots.

Heading into the final weekend of non-conference play, Fullerton was sitting at a 7-2 record marking their best start to a season since 2009. Finally getting a chance to play in their home state, the Titans were set for a pair of games at the UC Riverside Classic. In the first match, they would fall in five sets to Seattle, but would bounce back in their final non-conference match with a win over Penn. Costello reeled in another award as she was named the All-Tournament Libero while Makenzi Abelman earned a spot on the All-Tournament Team.

The Titans would enter Big West play with an 8-3 record, their best non-conference performance since the 2010 season.

Unfortunately, Fullerton had a tough start to conference play falling to UC Riverside in four sets and then getting swept by both Cal Poly and UC Santa Barbara. In their fourth match, the Titans would come just shy of sweeping (and upsetting) No. 11 Hawaii but the Rainbow Wahine would bounce back to reverse sweep and hand the Titans their fourth consecutive loss.

Needing to turn the tides, the Titans headed to UC Irvine and would come out with a four-set victory over the Anteaters. Crawford would notch her second Big West Freshman of the Week honor posting her fifth game of 20-plus kills to go along with 17 digs as the team snapped a 22-match conference losing streak.

Next on the schedule was the first meeting of the season against rival Long Beach State. Crawford and Tyler Fezzey would go on to post double-digit kills as the Titans would go on to sweep LBSU for the first time since 1981.

After being swept by CSUN and No. 21 Hawaii in their next two matches, the Titans would welcome UCI to Titan Gym for their second match of the season. In four sets, Fullerton would come out victorious again completing the season series sweep of the Anteaters for the first time since 2012.

The next four matches would not go in favor of the Titans, falling to UC Davis twice, CSUN, and Long Beach.

In a rematch against the Highlanders, Fullerton would end their losing ways with a sweep of UCR giving them their fourth conference victory of the season before closing out the season with back-to-back losses to NCAA Tournament bound UCSB and Cal Poly.

Some season highlights:

 

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