Oct. 21, 1999

The ninth-ranked UC Santa Barbara Women’s Volleyball team rode the shoulders of senior outside hitter Charlene Conley in games four and five to a 15-3, 11-15, 13-15, 15-11, 15-12 victory at Gersten Pavilion in Los Angeles Tuesday night. The Orange, California native pounded 13 kills in the last two games, helping the Gauchos improve to 16-3 on the season. The Lions dropped to 13-7 overall.

The Gauchos came out quick, dominating game one, outscoring the Lions 10-1 to open the match. UCSB surrendered just two more points in the opening stanza, and won the opener 15-3. But the Lions were not going to fold, and came back to life in games two and three. LMU held big leads early in both games, going up 11-5 in the second and 10-5 in the third. UCSB made runs to make the games close, but the leads were too big for the Gauchos to overcome.

Down two games to one in a hostile environment, head coach Kathy Gregory decided to insert senior outside hitter back into the lineup for game four, and it quickly paid off. UCSB opened game four with five straight points on senior captain Roberta Gehlke’s serve, sparked by three kills from Conley. However, the Lions made a comeback in the game, tying it at nine a piece before a Conley kill on an overpass and a Gehlke kill followed by a block solo made it 13-9. The Lions fought back to make it 13-11, but a Conley/Michelle Christ block assist and a Conley kill closed the game out at 15-11. In game four alone, Conley collected nine of her 13 kills.

In rally-scoring game five, the two teams see-sawed to a 10-10 tie before the Gauchos gained the advantage on two LMU errors and a Conley put-away. Up 13-10, all the Gauchos needed to do was sideout twice. Going to their hot hand, Conley only needed two swings to collect her last two kills of the match, and lead UCSB to the game five and match win 15-12.

“Charlene was great in games four and five,” remarked coach Gregory. “The victory belongs to her. Her 13 kills in games four and five were huge. If she hadn’t come through for us we would have lost the match.”

“Deborah Samson also did a great job coming off the bench at the end of the match, and gave us the added spark we needed to get going,” added Gregory. “She had some key digs and some crucial covers in game five that helped us to victory.”

Roberta Gehlke led UCSB with 19 kills and 18 digs. Sophomore middle blocker Jutta Weissenborn collected 17 kills while freshman outside hitter had a double-double with 13 kills and 10 digs. Sarah McFarland led the Lions with a match-high 38 kills.