‘It’s great to be home’: Oregon volleyball sets attendance record in sweep of Beavers
Playing its home opener roughly a month into the season, No. 6 Oregon volleyball opened Pac-12 play at Matthew Knight Arena in style Friday night, sweeping rival Oregon State, 25-20, 25-15, 25-14.
The Ducks (11-1, 1-0 Pac-12) were welcomed home from 11 straight games and about a month on the road by a program-record 7,334 fans in attendance – with an especially large contingent of students fresh from move-in.
“It’s great to be home,” Oregon coach Matt Ulmer said. “It’s been a long month for us … it’s great to see everyone show out. I really think it was important for our group to feel the love tonight after being away for so long. We were a little shell-shocked by the crowd at first, but then we settled down and played our game.”
Oregon joins other programs setting attendance records
The record crowd is yet another in a trend of historic attendance throughout collegiate volleyball this season, headlined by Nebraska’s 92,003 sellout played in its football stadium earlier this month. Just two weeks later, Marquette and Wisconsin set a new NCAA regular-season indoor attendance record at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee with 17,037.
Oregon’s matchup against Marquette last Sunday recorded around 325,000 total-average viewers over 96 minutes on Fox Sports 1, ranking near the top of the most watched volleyball games so far this season on a national network.
Ulmer said former Oregon basketball star Sabrina Ionescu had a lot to do with the rise of popularity in many women’s sports today.
“We were on the ground floor of seeing it happen,” he said. “When I first got here and when Sabrina first got here the crowds weren’t great. To see that support from the outside world get behind Sabrina and that group and all the sudden this was the ticket in town. It was something you should do.”
Ulmer also mentioned volleyball games do well when they’re put on major networks like ESPN and FOX, like the Ducks’ matchup against Marquette last Sunday.
“We’re just doing what we can do, and hopefully people continue to recognize what a great product it is,” Ulmer said. “I don’t think one person went away from this feeling like they didn’t have a good time for an hour and a half. That was a really fun and engaging thing … that’s what makes college athletics so special, people are recognizing amazing collegiate female athletes or professional female athletes and it’s just gone from there.”
After early jitters, Ducks dominate Beavers
And after the Ducks settled down from early jitters, it was all green and yellow at MKA.
In the opening set, the Ducks trailed for most of the first half, until a quick burst – and a swath of Beaver errors – helped level the set at 18-18. Oregon took control from there, winning four straight points to take the first set, 25-20. Middle Kara McGhee was a perfect 5-for-5 on her attacks in the set with the rest of the team struggling with hitting their spots and avoiding the Beaver block.
The Ducks used that positive momentum in Set 1 to runaway with it in Set 2, winning decisively, 25-15. Through two, the Beavers were hitting a dismal .014.
Oregon State finished with a .019 hitting percentage, with the Ducks stuffing the Beavers for 11 blocks.
McGhee finished with a team-high 10 kills with a .562 hitting percentage to go along with six blocks. Mimi Colyer had nine kills, and Morgan Lewis added eight, hitting .350. Georgia Murphy and Hannah Pukis had 16 and 14 digs, respectively, and Pukis dished out 30 assists.
“It’s fun,” McGhee, a transfer from Baylor, said. “The energy from the crowd was different. We only normally get that from super big matches so it's fun to have that happen more consistently.”
The Ducks take on UCLA Sunday in Los Angeles before hosting the Washington schools next weekend in Eugene.
Alec Dietz covers University of Oregon football, volleyball, women’s basketball and baseball for The Register-Guard. You may reach him at adietz@registerguard.com, and you can follow him on Twitter @AlecDietz.
This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Oregon volleyball sets attendance record in rivalry win over Beavers
