Nov. 16, 2011
Fullerton, Calif. - The Titans will honor their seniors this weekend as they return home to face UC Irvine in the only match of the week on Friday night in Titan Gym.
The Titans had a Jekyll and Hyde performance this past weekend, splitting matches up north with UC Davis and Pacific.
On Friday night, the Titans showed some fight as they battled back from a 2-0 deficit to beat the Aggies, 18-25, 17-25, 25-23, 25-18, 15-12. Kayla Neto led the way with 21 kills and 20 digs.
Jennifer Edmond had five of her 10 kills in the crucial third set that saw Fullerton trailing, 21-19. But three offensive kills and two Aggie errors kept the Titans' foot in the door and set up the rest of the comeback.
A night later, the Titans were unable to hold on to a 2-0 lead and suffered the same fate the Aggies did, but at the paws of the Tigers. Fullerton wasted another strong performance by Neto, who posted a 21-kill, 19-dig stat line in the 25-22, 25-22, 22-25, 20-25, 11-15 loss.
The Titans strung together a 5-1 run late in the fifth set to get to 11-13, but lost the last two points and dropped the match and the season series to Pacific. The loss also ensured the Titans of a sub-.500 season for the first time since 2005.
Gabrielle Dewberry totaled 57 digs on the weekend, missing back-to-back 30-dig efforts by three on Saturday night. Setter Andrea Ragan had consecutive double-doubles and had a match-high 52 assists in Saturday' loss.
LISTEN: Listen to the Titans take on the Anteaters with play-by-play announcer Patrick Alog on FullertonTitans.com. Visit the website and click the headphones in the upper right-hand corner to listen in.
WATCH: You can watch a video stream of this weekend's match with the Anteaters by visiting bigwest.tv and signing up for a subscription.
VERSUS UC IRVINE: The Titans are 25-35 all-time against the Anteaters dating back to their first meeting in 1980. The Titans have a 16-13 advantage when playing in Titan Gym, but trial 19-27 in Big West Conference play. The Titans have won the last three meetings dating back to 2009.
SENIOR NIGHT: Seniors Kim Russell, Jennifer Edmond, Leah Maurer and Andrea Ragan will be honored prior to Friday night's match against UC Irvine in the Titans annual Senior Night ceremony.
DOUBLE DOWN: Kayla Neto, Andrea Ragan and Bre Moreland have combined for 42 double-double performances this season... Neto leads the team with 18 matches in which she recorded double figures in kills and digs. She set a career high in digs on Sept. 24 in a 18-kill, 30-dig effort against UC Santa Barbara. She had a 20/20 performance last week at UC Davies (21 kills, 20 digs) and missed a second consecutive 20/20 match by one dig a night later... Ragan has double-doubles in 14 match, though hers comes by way of assists and digs. Her last performance, last Saturday at Pacific, was her best of the year, racking up 52 assists while tying her career high with 22 digs. It was her eighth match with 50-plus assists... Moreland has 10 matches with double-doubles (kills/digs) under her belt. Her two best performances produced career best efforts in both digs and kills. She set a career high in kills on Sept. 16 with 18 spikes and 17 scoops. She set her career high in digs on Sept. 24 against UC Santa Barbara, digging 22 attacks along with 17 kills in the five-set match.
300 MATCHES FOR ZIMMERMAN: The Titans 29th and final game of the 2012 regular season will be Carolyn Zimmerman's 300th game as a Div. I Head Coach. It will have taken her 10 full seasons to reach the 300 match marker. Zimmerman, at 298 matches, has seen the third-most games among Big West Coaches, trailing veteran coaches Brian Gimmilaro (898 matches over 27 yrs. with Long Beach) and Kathy Gregory (927 matches over 28 yrs. with UC Santa Barbara). Northridge's Jeff Stork is right on Zimmerman's tail with 288 matches under his belt in this, his tenth season. Overall Coach Zimmerman is 146-152.
LEAGUE WINS: With a victory over over UC Irvine on Friday night, the Titans can finish with at least eight wins in each of the last four seasons. School records for conference wins came in 2007 (7 wins), 2008 (9 wins) and 2010 (14 wins). Before 2007, the Titans won as many as six conference games just two times since 1980.
KEEP THE STREAK ALIVE: The Titans' school record of seven consecutive seasons with 14-or-more victories is riding on the final two matches of the year against UC Irvine and No. 6 Hawaii. The Titans need to win both matches to earn their 14th win of the season. The Titans are currently amidst five straight seasons with 15-plus wins and three in a row with 17-or-more victories.
IRON WOMEN: Kayla Neto, Andrea Ragan and Gabrielle Dewberry have played in all 103 sets of the season. Neto and Dewbery are juniors and still time left in their career, but Ragan will be playing her final two matches in the coming weeks. Ragan has played 388 career sets (good for ninth all-time in CSF history) over 110 career matches (tied for ninth all-time with Tammy Miller, 1986-89).
A NEW FACE: The Titans added a player to their roster about an hour before thier Oct. 28 match against Cal State Northridge. Devin Ulmer, a 5-foot-6, defensive specialist from Orange Lutheran High School was added by Head Coach Carolyn Zimmerman and later started her first match in the back row. Ulmer is a native of Chicago and is the younger sister to Long Beach State's third-year assistant coach, Matt Ulmer. In six matches since her debut, she has played 24 sets and has averaged 1.62 digs per set (39 total) with one service ace.
TOP DIGGITY DOG: Gabrielle Dewberry became the second Titan to record 30-or-more digs this season (Kayla Neto, 30, Sept. 24 vs. UCSB), scooping up a match-high 33 attack attempts on Oct. 21 at UC Santa Barbara . It's just the 10th time in school history that an individual has recorded 33-or-more digs in a single match, and the first time since 2010 (Cami Croteau, Nov. 20, 2010, 38 digs) that someone has had more than 32 digs. Dewberry is tied with former libber Vanessa Vella for the eighth-most digs in a single match for Cal State Fullerton. Dewberry currently ranks fourth in the Big West in overall digs (415) and fifth in digs per set (4.03). It is a career high for her in her first full season at the libber position.
SPECIAL ASSISTANT: On Oct. 14 against Pacific, senior setter Andrea Ragan became the Titans' all-time leader in career assists midway through the first set. She finished the night with 31 assists and 3,930 in her career, breaking Julie Geissert's old mark of 3,907. She became the Titans' first player to ever amass 4,000 assists on Oct. 21 at UC Santa Barbara. She has two more matches this season to leave her final mark on the record book. Her 11.07 assists per set is also a school record, just in front of Geissert who averaged 10.82 assists per set from 2004-07.
TOP 3 CSF ASSIST LEADERS:
1. 4,295, assists, Andrea Ragan (388 sets), 2008-pres.
2. 3,907 assists, Julie Geissert (361 sets), 2004-07
3. 3,621, assists, Kim Levey (389 sets), 1999-02
1,000-KILL KLUB: On Nov. 1 at UC Irvine, Kayla Neto amassed her 1,000th career kill midway through the third set of the Titans' four-set win. Neto became just the seventh person in school history to reach the plateau, and the first since Brittany Moore in 2009. So far this season, Neto has moved passed Alyssa Opeka, Alex Wolnisty, Heather Bassett and Sarah Morrison on the career kill list this season and sow sits alone in the No. 7 all-time slot. She will need to rattle off 27 kills in each of the last two matches to knock Lauren Goins (2001-04) from the sixth place spot this season.
CSF CAREER KILLS
1. 1,534 - Brittany Moore (2005-08) / Susan Herman (1986-89)
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6. 1,114 - Lauren Goins (2001-04)
7. 1,061 - Kayla Neto (2009-present)
8. 954 - Sarah Morrison (2001-05)
9. 935 - Heather Bassett (1995-96)
10. 917 -Alex Wolnisty (2006-09)