SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Santa Clara volleyball continues its Spring 2021 campaign with a home-and-home West Coast Conference set against Pacific this week. The Broncos are on the road at Alex G. Spanos Center Tuesday, then return home to host the Tigers Wednesday in Leavey Center. Both matches start at 6 p.m.

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 matches 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).

Anthony Passarelli is the play-by-play announcer for Wednesday's match at Santa Clara.

THE BRONCOS

Santa Clara opened its season against No. 18 San Diego last week and fell to the Toreros 3-1 in both contests. Tuesday's match marked the first for SCU in 440 days, after the fall 2020 season was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Santa Clara's first six matches of the Spring season were also postponed.

Julia Sangiacomo totaled 17 kills on .319 hitting for the Broncos on Wednesday. She leads the Santa Clara offense with 29 kills (3.63/set) while freshman Sophia Tulino has 27 kills (3.38/set). Tulino racked up 15 kills on .265 hitting to go with four aces in her collegiate debut on Tuesday; she added 12 kills and four more aces on Wednesday. The Broncos hit .178 between the two matches against the Toreros and allowed a .251 hitting percentage. Santa Clara outblocked San Diego 16-13 overall and 9-3 in the second matchup.

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 is in her second stint as a head coach after leading Dartmouth from 2011 to 2015. Her overall record as a head coach is 75-83 (21-14, 10-10 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 went 21-12 overall for a 15-win improvement compared to the previous year and their first 20-win season since 2015. Lindsey became first head coach in program history to start 6-0 in her debut season.

ACTIVE ROSTER BREAKDOWN

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.

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.

THE TIGERS

• This Season (2021): 1-5 (1-5 WCC, 1-2 Home, 0-3 Away) | Last Season (2019): 13-17 (5-13 WCC)
• Picked to finish tied for 7^th of 10 (with Gonzaga) in 2021 WCC Spring preseason poll
• All-time series: Pacific leads Santa Clara 28-12 (first meeting 1975)
• 2019: 10/26 SCU won 3-1 @ PAC, 11/26 SCU won 3-0 @ SCU
• Santa has won three straight matchups in the series (last PAC win – 9/25/18)

Pacific dropped a pair of matches last week at Pepperdine, falling 3-1 on Tuesday and 3-2 on Wednesday. The Tigers have lost four straight tilts overall; they split the season-opening series with Gonzaga before dropping two contests against San Francisco. They have already played three five-set matches and no Pacific matches have resulted in a sweep.

Freshman Alexa Edwards paces the team's attack with 3.85 kills/set this season. She has led the team in kills in every match thus far, recording at least 13 kills in each contest, including two 21-kill efforts. Edwards takes more swings on average than any other WCC student-athlete with 11.67 attacks/set.

The Tigers are hitting .124 and allowing a .188 hitting percentage. They are being more than doubled-up by their opponents in blocks (79.5-39.0).