By Nicholas Fortes

Daily Titan Staff Writer

Sophomore setter Andrea Ragan hits the ball over the net against Pacific. Photo by Ron Fu/Daily Titan Staff Photographer.

The Cal State Fullerton women’s volleyball team had four players set season highs in kills and combined for 146 kills in two games this weekend, extending their winning streak to three and doing what they need to do to stay in the hunt for the conference tournament, beating UC Davis Friday night and University of the Pacific Saturday night.

“It’s out of our hands at this point,” said assistant coach, Vinh Nguyen. “Our loss to (Cal State Northridge) is hurting us, but we’re taking it one game at a time.”

The Titans opened the weekend with a 3-1 upset over conference leader UC Davis (25-19, 25-22, 21-25, 28-26) with strong performances from mostly everyone on the court, smashing 70 team kills.

Three Titans had 14 kills or more and five finished with double digits in digs.

“The Davis win was big for us. The UCLA win was so long ago, and the girls started to forget that feeling so it was big,” Nguyen said.

Junior outside hitter Erin Saddler (23 kills, 14 digs) and sophomore setter Andrea Ragan (51 assists, 15 digs) each earned double-doubles as the Titans out-hit the Aggies .204 to .142 and dug out 93 kill attempts from the potent Aggies offense.

Junior libero Cami Croteau led the team with 28 digs.

Freshman middle blocker Kayla Neto finished the night with 19 kills, hitting .400 on the night helping to end UC Davis’ six match winning streak.

The Titans jumped to an early 2-0 advantage, but the Titans seemed to stop hitting the ball the right way in the third set as they made 11 hitting errors, and the Aggies were able to take the third set 25-21.

In the fourth set, the Aggies (18-9, 9-4) went on a late 3-0 run to take the lead 23-21 but couldn’t fight off the Titan attack as the Titans took the fourth set 28-26 and the match 3-1.

The Titans returned to the court Saturday night and took the game into the fifth set for only the fourth time this season, taking the win over Pacific (19-25, 25-14, 25-23, 22-25, 15-12).

“I’d rather not have a fifth set, but if it means getting the victory, you have to do what you have to do,” said Head Coach Carolyn Zimmerman. “I thought tonight was a little unusual in the gym. We were a little bit flat; we certainly weren’t the same team as last night, but it’s tough to do that back-to-back nights.”

The Titans dropped the first set to the Tigers 19-25 but came out in the second on fire.

The set stayed close for most of the start until Neto took the service at 10-9, and the Titans went on a 7-2 run, scoring five straight at one point.

Neto led the Titans with 22 kills, hitting .562 on the night. Torrie Brown (20 kills) and Saddler (19 kills) were the other Titans in double digits and with a total of  95 team digs, the second chances paid off.

The Titans continued to roll as they cruised to an easy 25-14 win in the second set to tie the game at 1-1.

The third set was the closest of the match with both teams not able to surmount any kind of momentum to gain a sizable advantage.

The Titans saw themselves down 23-21 in the closing moments of the set until they were able to go on a 3-0 run to take the set in a morale boosting fashion 25-23.

The Tigers (16-9, 6-7) came out quick in the fourth set and kept their lead, although small, for most of the set.

The Titans fell to 16-20 at one point, but on a string of acrobatic digs from Croteau and senior outside hitter Ashley Collier, the Titans found themselves tied at 20.

The Tigers took a timeout to regroup and came out and scored two quick points to take a 22-20 advantage and looked to take the game to a fifth set.

The Tigers finished strong, winning the set 25-22 and tying the game up at 2-2 and forcing a deciding 15-point fifth set for the second time in the Titans season.

The Titans took the court in the fifth and took control early with a 6-1 lead.

The Tigers battled back to cut the lead to 7-5 until a huge unforced error killed their momentum and gave the Titans an 8-5 lead at the switch.

The set remained close with Titans holding a slight advantage over the Tigers as the set wound down.

The teams traded points and timeouts as the score reached 13-12 in favor of the Titans.

The Titans took the next two points to take the fifth set 15-12 and their third victory in a row.

Croteau led the Titans with 28 digs, some of which were the most acrobatic of the season, Ragan had 65 assists and the Titans out hit the Tigers .279 to .214 in their 15th win of the season, their six in a row with 14 or more wins.

“We didn’t have a lot of time to prepare for Pacific, we started watching film on them today. Personally I like it like that, I want to know what I have to do and go out and do it,” Brown said.