“In Australia, they have this law where everything happens in threes.”
Head coach Jason Watson was talking in a postgame press conference on Nov. 22. His team had just lost to No. 1 USC, and during it, junior outside hitter BreElle Bailey had fallen. Watson got worried that ASU had a third injury on its hands.
It didn’t. Bailey was fine.
Five days later, a hard-hit ball struck senior middle blocker Mercedes Binns in the head. She immediately fell to the floor but stood up quickly, clapping her hands with tears in her eyes. She played one more point, before head coach Jason Watson called a timeout for trainers to examine her.
She stayed in the game, and the only update from the team about her condition was that "she's fine."
ASU’s regular season ended on the 3-1 loss to No. 23 Arizona (20-25, 25-23, 22-25, 21-25). Both teams finished the season with 19 wins; they’ll await the announcement to see who’s in the NCAA tournament.
""We needed our hitters to be cleaner and manage things better," Watson said.
After keeping the lineup stagnant for the majority of November, ASU made a major change for the final match.
Freshman setter Kylie Pickrell got the start at opposite hitter. Senior Whitney Follette transitioned back to her natural middle blocker position after playing opposite in November, and freshman opposite hitter Lexi MacLean was relegated to a bench role.
This came after MacLean had combined for six kills and nine errors in her previous two matches.
Pickrell’s swings at opposite were not powerful. After a couple early swings and a hitting error, she didn’t see much action in the first set offense. But she was involved in the defense.
On the third rally of the game, Pickrell got her first block of her collegiate career. She was involved in both blocks in the set, getting block assists on both.
Junior outside hitter Cassidy Pickrell had the first six swings of the match for ASU, but the middles were a little more involved in the first set. Early, Arellano was giving them slide attempts.
Follette hit the first kill for ASU on one.
After the first set, Binns' involvement in the offense was limited. Through three games, she only had eight attempts.
She had four attempts in the fourth set, three of them resulting in kills.
Arizona had its own lineup changes. Junior outside hitter Kalei Mau, the leading killer on the team, sat due to a concussion. Freshman outside hitter Kendra Dahlke took her place.
In the first set, Dahlke finished with six kills on a .308 hitting percentage.
She was good at hitting the ball high. Several times, she elevated it to shoulder-level of a back row player; it was too high to bump but low enough to stay in bounds. The defender was unable to do much with it.
Cassidy Pickrell had 11 kills in the first two sets. She and Dahlke battled to lead their respective teams.
ASU tied the match with a second set victory, but the third began in Dahlke’s favor. Arizona grabbed a 5-2 lead behind two Dahlke kills, blocking Pickrell twice.
ASU made a late comeback after falling behind 23-16. Binns hit a kill and Arizona had three consecutive hitting errors, but Kylie Pickrell was blocked at the net. She finished the game with a service error, one of ASU’s three in the set.
The Sun Devils had six blocks in the fourth set, four of them coming from Follette, and they made a pair of mini-runs to stay close. A pair of consecutive block assists from Follette and Arellano tied the set at 12. After falling behind again, Follette had two more blocks to help ASU tie the score at 20.
Arizona scored the next four points, icing the match.
"I think we're a bubble team to make the tournament," Watson said. "We'll see what the committee decides on Sunday."
Reach the reporter at logan.newman@asu.edu or follow @Logan_Newsman on Twitter.
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