The Santa Clara volleyball team defeated Portland 3-0 Thursday night in Portland.  Game scores were 27-25, 25-18 and 25-20.  Santa Clara is now 10-6 and 1-2 in the WCC.  Porlant falls to 7-8 and 0-3 in the WCC.

Santa Clara will travel to Gonzaga on Sat., Oct. 10 for a Noon match-up with he Zags.

"We played with great energy and focus tonight. The win tonight avenged our loss here last year," said Bronco head coach Jon Wallace.  "Kayla made a lot of smart plays tonight and was a real force at the net for us.  Kaleigh hitting .500 was fantastic and was close to unstoppable.  Tanya Schmidt did a nice job and was extremely active. She was really smart with her play and that was really solid for us.  Emily Burke did a great job of distributing sets and getting the ball around."

Santa Clara hit .311 with 52 kills (15 e, 119 att).  They collected 46 assits, 45 digs, and 7.5 team blocks.  Portland hit .196 with 40 kills (18 e, 112 att.). The Pilots had 37 assists, 45 digs and four team blocks.

Individually Santa Clara was led by Kaleigh Durket's 15 kills (2 e, 26 att) as she hit .500 on the night.  Wallace called Lommori "an absolute workhorse in the match" as she collected 17 kills with six digs.  Emily Burke had 30 assists and two digs.  Bridget O'Hara had 12 digs.  Dana Knudsen collected five kills and Tanya Schmidt had seven kills and four block assists.

In the first set, the two teams battled back and forth before Portland took a 19-16 lead on a kill by Danielle DuPar.  SCU tied it up 20-20 on three straight Pilot errors.  The Broncos fell behind 22-20 and 23-21. After a timeout, Portland committed two straight hitting errors to put SCU up 25-24.  A kill by Durket and the set winner by Megan Anders gave the Broncos set one 27-25.

In set two, Santa Clara went up 5-1 and 9-3 on back to back kills by Durket and Lexi Williamson.  The Broncos went up 15-9 on kills by Durket and Schmidt.  SCU went up 24-17 on another Schmidt kill and then won set two on a kill by Durket.

Set three featured five ties before two Pilot errors and a Durket kill gave the Bronos a 12-9 lead.  SCU went up 17-12 on a kill by Knudsen and then 22-18 on another Lommori kill.  SCU won set three and the match, 25-20, on a kill by Knudsen.