SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Santa Clara volleyball is set to begin its 2021 Spring campaign with a pair of West Coast Conference matchups against No. 18 San Diego in Leavey Center this week. The Broncos and Toreros face off on Tuesday at 1 p.m. and Wednesday at 2 p.m.

Santa Clara begins its second season under head coach Erin Lindsey, who led the Broncos to a 21-12 overall mark and the second round of the NIVC in 2019. Tuesday's match marks the first for SCU in 440 days, after the fall 2020 season was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Santa Clara is the last team in the WCC to begin its season; all other teams have played at least four matches entering the week.

Due to current COVID-19 guidelines in Santa Clara County, spectators are not permitted inside Leavey Center.

HOW TO WATCH ON WCC NETWORK

Santa Clara home matches and West Coast Conference contests are streamed live on WCC Network. All events are available at WCCSports.com/watch. Match-specific broadcast links will be posted on the schedule page and on Twitter (@SCUVolleyball).

Ben Ross is the play-by-play announcer for the matches against San Diego.

THE BRONCOS

Santa Clara returns six student-athletes from 2019 on the active roster, all of whom saw the court last season. Senior libero Gretchen Reinert played in all 33 matches and all 124 sets last season. Junior setter/opposite Michelle Shaffer and sophomore outside hitter Julia Sangiacomo also played in all 33 matches.

Sangiacomo, entering her sophomore season, earned Second Team All-WCC and WCC All-Freshman team honors in her debut campaign on the Mission campus. She led the WCC with 492.5 points (4.14/set, led SCU, 2^nd WCC). The outside hitter also led SCU and all WCC freshmen while finishing second overall in the conference with 411 kills (3.45/set, led SCU/4^th WCC). Sangiacomo posted double-digit kills in 22 of 31 matches and had five double-doubles.

Reinert led the Broncos and finished fourth in the WCC with 451 digs. She reached the 20-dig mark seven times. The libero had 10 or more digs in the first 11 matches and 28 of 33 for the season.

Shaffer led SCU with 781 assists (6.35/set) while playing primarily in a two-setter system and topped the Broncos by recording 13 double-doubles. Other season highlights include posting Santa Clara's first triple-double since 2003 (16 seasons), posting Santa Clara's first 20-20 match since 2017 (two seasons), becoming the second Bronco in program history to record a triple-double and a 20-20 match in the same season and tying an SCU single-match program record with eight aces, becoming the first Bronco since 1989 (30 seasons) and the fourth in program history to hit that mark from the service line.

Liliana Light (23 matches, 88 sets), Kathryn Decker (16 matches, 45 sets) and Alex Anthony (7 matches, 22 sets) round out the returning unit. Light played in each of the first 23 matches before missing the final 10 contests due to injury. Decker played in six of the first 23 matches (nine sets) before playing in all 36 sets of the last 10 matches.

Santa Clara welcomes seven newcomers in freshmen Casey Campbell, Kat Georgiadis, Lexi Poppinga, Elena Radeff, Nani Spaar, Sophia Tulino and Lucy Walsh. Prepvolleyball.com recognized the group with an honorable mention on its list of top recruiting classes for 2020.

HEAD COACH ERIN LINDSEY

Erin Lindsey is in her second season as head coach of Santa Clara volleyball. She is the 10th head coach for a program that dates back to 1963 and enters her second stint as a head coach after leading Dartmouth from 2011 to 2015. Her overall record as a head coach is 75-81 (21-12, 10-8 WCC at SCU). Lindsey joined the Broncos after winning a national championship as an assistant coach at Stanford in 2018.

Last year, Santa Clara reached the postseason for the first time since 2015 and won its first postseason match since 2008 by claiming an opening-round victory at Long Beach State in the NIVC. The Broncos logged a 15-win improvement compared to the previous year and won 20 matches for the first time since 2015. Lindsey became first head coach in program history to start 6-0 in her debut season.

��️ Get ready for the Spring 2021 season by catching up with @Coach_ELindsey in this edition of Bronco Chat!

Presented by @UCU_LA. Episode sponsored by @CrestviewDDS.#StampedeTogether #SCUBroncos https://t.co/iSh0KAD4AK

— Santa Clara Volleyball (@scuvolleyball) February 16, 2021

ACTIVE ROSTER BREAKDOWN

By Class: Seniors (2), juniors (3), sophomores (1), freshmen (7)

By State/Country: California (8), Texas (2), Hawai'i (1), Oregon (1), Canada (1)

WCC PRESEASON POLL

The Broncos were picked to finish 4^th of 10 teams in the 2021 West Coast Conference Spring preseason poll. San Diego, the defending conference champion, was picked to win the WCC again with 78 points and seven first-place votes. The Toreros closely edged out BYU (72 points, one first-place vote) and Pepperdine (69 points, two first-place votes). The Broncos cracked the top four with 55 points. LMU (50), Saint Mary's (41), Pacific (27), Gonzaga (27), San Francisco (18) and Portland (13) rounded out the poll.

SAN DIEGO

• This Season (2021): 4-0 (4-0 WCC, 0-0 Away) | Last Season (2019): 25-6 (17-1 WCC), WCC Champions, NCAA Tournament Second Round
• Picked to finish 1^st of 10 in 2021 WCC Spring preseason poll
• All-time series: San Diego leads Santa Clara 40-34 (first meeting 1979)
• 2019: 10/10 USD won 3-0 @ USD, 11/9 USD won 3-0 @ SCU
• San Diego has won 10 straight matchups in the series (Last SCU win – Nov. 1, 2014)

The Toreros enter Tuesday's matchup at 4-0 on the heels of four home victories. They swept Saint Mary's in matches on Feb. 7-8 to start the season, then topped Portland in four sets on Feb. 10 before sweeping the Pilots on Feb. 11. On Jan. 22, the team announced a pause in activities as part of a positive COVID-19 test result within the program. As a result, its first scheduled matches of the year at Gonzaga (Jan. 24-25) were postponed.

San Diego ranks ninth in the country in both hitting percentage (.314) and kills/set (14.69), while checking in at 14^th in aces/set (2.15) and 14^th at opponent hitting percentage (.100). Individually, Laura Madill ranks sixth in the NCAA with 11.85 assists/set. Reigning WCC Player of the Week Roxie Wiblin paces the Torero offense with a team-leading 4.46 kills/set (23^rd NCAA) on .320 hitting. The offense also features Thana Fayad (3.77 kills/set on .327 hitting) and Grace Frohling (3.62 kills/set on .275 hitting).