And with that, it is a good afternoon, good evening and goodnight to the 2022 WSU volleyball season.

In the second round of the NCAA Tournament, No. 24 WSU (23-10, 14-6 Pac-12) fought hard but lost to No. 2 seed San Diego (29-1, 18-0 WCC)  3-1 (25-19, 25-22, 21-25, 25-15).

Despite the loss, the team looked strong and will use this loss as motivation and as film to study to come back stronger next season. With the majority of the team returning and Laura Jansen being the lone loss, the team will come back with a vengeance in 2023.

The first three sets were tightly contested and went back and forth to the end. In the first set, the Cougs had a 4-0 run to make their deficit only 17-16. Despite this middle-of-the-set surge, the Torero’s closed out on a 5-0 to take it 25-19.

In the second set, the Cougs took a 10-7 lead off of Karly Basham’s 38th service ace of the season and momentum looked to be swinging in favor of the Cougs. The rest of the way it was back and forth, but the Toreros once again came out on top.

Similar to Wazzu, USD is extremely good when taking the first two sets of a match, being undefeated when doing so.

With the daunting task ahead of them, the Cougs refused to give up. They took the third set, which was capitalized by Magda Jehlarova’s 600th career block.

All hope was quickly brushed away, as USD took an early lead and never looked back in a relatively dominant fourth set.

Head coach Jen Greeny is now 5-3 in the Tournament as a coach and a deep run may be imminent with a returning core in 2023.

For the match, Pia Timmer led the team with 21 kills. However, she had 11 errors as well on her 59 total attacks, which led to a hitting percentage of .169. She tallied a double-double as she added 15 digs from the defensive side.

Jansen, in her final game in the crimson and gray, tallied another double-double as she had 10 kills and 13 digs, a great personal performance to end her career, but not the most desirable result.

Argentina Ung was the final Coug to tally a double-double, as she notched 43 assists and 12 digs, while also adding three kills of her own with only one error.

With the loss, the season is over for the Cougs and it will leave a sour taste in the mouth of the players who looked to build on the success of the previous three seasons.

Next season, with several returning key contributors, the Cougs will be favorites to be a top-finishing team in the Pac-12 Conference and will look for higher seeding and an easier path in the 2023 Tournament.