GAINESVILLE, Fla.—The Arizona State volleyball team (19-13) fell to No. 19 Florida State (25-7), 25-13, 25-17, 25-21, on Thursday in the opening round of the 2015 NCAA Volleyball Tournament.
Freshman Lexi MacLean led the way with eight kills, while Bree Bailey added seven. Freshman Jasmine Koonts added four blocks.
There’s a lot to be proud of with this team,” head coach Jason Watson said. “As we talked about at the end of the match in the locker room after, we’ve absorbed an enormous amount of adversity this year with some injuries to some key athletes. To get here speaks volumes to our athletes and their commitment to this process. For our institution to go to four straight NCAA Tournaments for the second time ever speaks to their dedication to the process. It’s disappointing of course, we don’t like losing, but I feel like we’re trending in the right direction. I’m incredibly proud of our athletes.”
Florida State’s Nicole Walch led the way with 16 kills, while Sarah Burrington had eight blocks and Mercedes Vaughn added six blocks and six more kills.
In 2015, junior Cassidy Pickrell led the team with 304 kills, and tied for a team high in service aces with 25 with Whitney Follette, who also lead the squad with a team high 140 blocks, 113 block assists, and 27 solo blocks. Mercedes Binns led ASU in attack percentage with a mark of .318.
Sophomore Halle Harker picked up 423 digs, putting her just 56 away from becoming the 18th Sun Devil to reach the 1000 dig milestone, and Bree Bailey’s 288 kills this season gives her 908 in her career, 92 away from 1000.
Senior Bianca Arellano led ASU with 668 assists, while freshman Kylie Pickrell added 95. Arellano wrapped her career with 975 digs, likely giving her one of the highest career totals in that category for a Sun Devil setter with 3,000 or more kills.
Four Sun Devil seniors capped their careers with marks in the ASU career records, Macey Gardner with her school record in kills (1882) and moved into the 1,000+ digs club (1093), Whitney Follette is No. 2 all-time in Block Assists (364) and No. 3 all-time in total blocks with 448, Bianca Arellano is No. 4 all-time in assists with 3,184, and Mercedes Binns is No. 8 all-time in block assists with 282 and No. 8 all-time with total blocks with 328.
ASU opened the 2015 campaign with 15 straight wins, the best start since the inaugural year of the program in 1973, and also opened league competition with the best start in the Pac-10/12 era with four wins. The Sun Devils snapped a 15-year losing streak to Stanford, making the senior class the first cohort to defeat each Pac-12 opponent.
The Sun Devils also set attendance records, defeating Arizona in front of a Watson-era best 5,152, which included a student-section record of 2,011 fans. Watson also earned his 200th career head coaching victory on Nov. 14 at Utah.
Volleyball at Arizona State will return in the spring with ASU’s third beach volleyball season.