MORAGA, Calif. — The 2022 regular season might've ended a bit too soon for the Santa Clara University volleyball team.
The Broncos – on a roll in the season's last month – closed their regular season Tuesday staying hot, winning their fourth match in a row by beating East Bay rival Saint Mary's on the road, 3-1 (25-22, 25-18, 16-25, 25-12), in a West Coast Conference matchup at University Credit Union Pavilion.
Santa Clara's strong finish to the regular season mirrors its strong start to conference play, when it started 2-0 in the WCC for the first time in 14 years. The four-match win streak is its longest since also winning four in a row from Oct. 9-23 a year ago.
Julia Sangiacomo led all players with 23 kills while hitting an impressive .452. She narrowly missed a double-double Tuesday with nine digs and added three blocks. With that performance, she passed Lia Young (1990-93) on the Santa Clara all-time career kills list. Sangiacomo now has 1,498 kills in her career, good for fourth all-time in the Santa Clara record book. She also has 445 kills this season and has averaged 4.24 kills per set. Her kills average stands as the eighth-best all-time in a single season at Santa Clara, and she's five kills away from No. 10 in a single season (450).
Layla Truitt hit a match-best .458 Tuesday and logged her first career double-double with a season-high 11 digs. She also had a season-best five service aces – second-most by any WCC player in a four-set match this season. Nive Tuileta eclipsed the 2,000 career assists mark on Tuesday by collecting 45 assists. She also tallied her sixth double-double of the season with 11 digs. Kat Georgiadis led all players with 12 digs while adding four assists.
Santa Clara (12-18, 8-10 WCC) took the lead in the first set at 10-9 and didn't trail again, though the Gaels (9-17, 6-12 WCC) didn't let them get away easily. The Broncos never had more than a four-point lead, and that was only once at 13-9.
Santa Clara never trailed in the second set, though Saint Mary's again pushed them by tying it twice at 10-10 and 12-12. A 6-2 SCU run after the second tie score made it 18-12 Broncos and they cruised from there to a 25-18 set win and a 2-0 match lead.
Saint Mary's returned the favor and never trailed in the third set to grab a win and make it 2-1 in the match. But the Broncos dropped the hammer in the fourth, earning a decisive, 25-12 set victory to clinch the match. Santa Clara went on an early 11-3 run to turn a 2-2 tie into a 13-5 lead. The run included seven kills and two aces from the Broncos. Two of the Gaels' three points came from SCU errors as SMC struggled to put together any offense.
Santa Clara concluded the regular season at 12-18 and 8-10 in WCC play, finishing fifth in the conference standings – right where the preseason poll picked them. It's the second season in a row and third in head coach Erin Lindsey's tenure that the Broncos have won at least 12 matches in a season. It's also the second time during Lindsey's tenure Santa Clara has finished among the conference's top-five (also in 2019).
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