The crowd had waited all game — all season, in fact. The players have been trying to push away anticipation of the moment and focus on the game. The volleyball was on the way to senior outside hitter Macey Gardner.
Left side. Step up. Jump. Slam.
The ball ricocheted off a defender’s hand, sailed over the ASU net and landed out-of-bounds.
Gardner had her 1,872 career kill, breaking the all-time ASU women’s volleyball kills record in a 3-0 sweep over Cal.
“That whole game I’m trying not think about it, trying not to think about the girls thinking about it, and it was okay until the moment it happened and I looked over at Whitney (Follette) and she’s crying and I’m like 'Are you kidding me?'” Gardner said.
She came into the weekend needing a hefty-but-doable 35 kills to break the record and 22 in a victory over No. 8 Stanford on Friday set the stage for a record-breaking Sunday afternoon.
Against Cal, however, the veteran started slowly.
“Early we were forcing some stuff to her and we were forcing it tight,” said head coach Jason Watson.
Gardner had three kills and two errors in the first set. However, the rest of her team carried the load.
The setters spread the floor well, with four players finishing with at least three kills. Four hitters hit at least .375. Junior outside hitter BreElle Bailey led the way with four kills and no errors for a .667 hitting percentage.
"Every time the ball went back, it was an automatic kill,” Gardner said. “She held us in that match.”
The team also had five blocks in the set, one of which came against Cal redshirt senior middle blocker Lillian Schonewise. She was Watson’s main concern coming into the game.
Schonewise lives off her slide attack, but in the first set, it was ineffective. Senior middle blocker Whitney Follette blocked one of them, and Schonewise didn’t get a kill.
Follette said Schonewise’s attack was really quick.
“We were late more than half the time and we were just going to stay down and take tips,” Follette said. “It worked out, she wasn’t a big factor.”
Schonewise finished the match with four kills and four errors on 17 attempts.
Set two was similar to the first: Gardner had only two kills, but the rest of the team hit fantastically.
Junior outside hitter Cassidy Pickrell had five kills on nine attempts, good for a .555 hitting percent. Through two complete sets, she, Bailey and Follette had all hit at least .444.
The three combined for 21 kills on a .473 hitting percent while blocking 12 shots in the first two sets.
Pickrell finished the match with eight kills and no errors. The team hit above .300 in every set.
“I feel good about our offense, I feel good about our 6-2,” Watson said.
Gardner came alive in the third set. She scored five of ASU’s first six points, pushing them to a 6-2 lead.
She was only three away from breaking the record.
Full video: Macey Gardner breaks ASU all-time kill record from The State Press on Vimeo.
She got two kills in the middle of the set amidst a run by Cal, and with ASU’s lead cut to three, she got a set from freshman setter Kylie Pickrell.
Kill number 13. ASU took a 22-18 lead and Gardner took the record.
ASU won 25-19.
“You don’t come into ASU thinking, ‘Ooh, I’m going to break the kills record,’ but it comes down four years later and it’s an opportunity so it’s just really cool,” Gardner said.
Reach the reporter at logan.newman@asu.edu or follow @Logan_Newsman on Twitter.
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