VOLLEYBALL

Corvallis Gazette-Times

Rachel Rourke hit a career-high with 28 kills on Thursday, but the Oregon State freshman’s effort was only enough for the Beavers to take one game from Arizona State in the Pacific-10 Conference women’s volleyball match.

Scores of the match were 30-17, 29-31, 30-26, 30-17.

Oregon State (3-19, 0-13 Pac-10) will host Arizona at 7 tonight.

“This is a work in progress,” coach Taras Liskevych said. “We won a game tonight and that’s a start but we need to keep working on our passing. We had a couple untimely serving errors that killed us in game three and that was the game.”

The Beavers gained the lead at 12-11 in the second game on a stuff-block by Rourke and held on to win the game. OSU used a pair of Rourke kills, one by Brittany Cahoon and an ace by Ashley Evans to push the lead to 27-22. The Sun Devils crept back into the game tying the score at 29-29 and stirring up the crowd of 1,704 before Rourke tallied her seventh kill of the game to go up 30-29. A scrambling rally by the Beavers resulted in an overpass.

that ASU’s Tierra Burnley attacked at the middle of the net. But Evans raced by the play with one arm raised, rejecting Burnley’s offering as the ball bounded to the left, back corner of ASU’s court to send the Beavers to the locker room even at one game apiece.

Rourke totaled 30.5 points on 28 kills and three total blocks.

Kristin Murray joined Rourke in double figures with 13.0 points on nine kills, three aces and a block.

Evans led three Beavers with 15 digs. Rourke’s 28 kills tie for 10th most ever for an Oregon State player.