SAN DIEGO – The University of San Diego women’s volleyball team entered West Coast Conference play Thursday night facing a reality it did not encounter once during conference action last season.
A loss.
Saint Mary’s outlasted USD in five sets, 10-25, 25-19, 12-25, 25-20, 16-14, at Jenny Craig Pavilion, handing the Toreros a loss in their WCC opener and dropping them to 5-6 overall and 0-1 in conference play.
The result immediately separates this season from USD’s dominant 2025 campaign, when the Toreros finished 25-5 overall and went a perfect 18-0 in WCC play. But replicating that record was always going to be a difficult standard for a roster that entered 2026 replacing several significant contributors from last season.
Among those departures were libero Olivia Bennett, middle blocker Kali Engeman and outside hitter Isabel Clark. At the same time, USD returned reigning WCC Player of the Year Nemo Beach and several players who were expected to take on larger roles as the Toreros worked through a challenging nonconference schedule.
Thursday provided perhaps the clearest example yet of what that transition can look like.
USD was dominant when it was in rhythm.
The Toreros overwhelmed Saint Mary’s in the opening set, hitting .500 without committing an attack error in 18 attempts. USD also held the Gaels to a -.067 hitting percentage and used five team blocks to cruise to a 25-10 victory.
But the momentum did not carry into the second.
USD committed nine attack errors and hit just .026 as Saint Mary’s responded with a 25-19 win to even the match.
The Toreros flipped the match again in the third set. They hit .481 with 14 kills and just one attack error while limiting the Gaels to a -.026 percentage. Kierstyn Barton supplied five kills on eight swings in the set, and USD rolled to a 25-12 victory to move one set away from opening conference play with a win.
However, Saint Mary’s refused to go away.
The Gaels forced a deciding fifth set with a 25-20 fourth-set victory before edging USD 16-14 in the finale.
The back-and-forth nature of the match was reflected in the numbers. USD finished with fewer kills than Saint Mary’s, 53-56, but hit .243 compared with the Gaels’ .136. The Toreros also dominated at the net, finishing with 17 total team blocks compared with just five for Saint Mary’s. And although the Gaels won three sets to the Toreros two, the Toreros won more points by a landslide, 103-88.
Barton led USD offensively with 16 kills while hitting .375 and was a major presence at the net with seven block assists. Beach added 13 kills, while Emma Brewer finished with 12. Setter Kylie Munday recorded 43 assists and 16 digs, and libero Lauren Lynch added 14 digs. BayLea Sparks was particularly disruptive at the net, finishing with nine block assists.
Perhaps more important than the loss itself is what Thursday means in the context of the season.
Last year’s 18-0 conference record set an unusually high bar. That exact accomplishment is now off the table after one WCC match, but an undefeated conference record was never the only way for this year’s team to have a successful season.
USD intentionally tested itself throughout nonconference play, including matches against nationally ranked opponents, while trying to prepare a reshaped roster for conference competition. The Toreros now enter the heart of their schedule knowing the road through the WCC may look considerably different than it did a year ago.
Thursday showed both sides of that new reality. USD produced stretches in which it looked capable of controlling a match, including two sets in which the Toreros hit .481 or better, but it could not sustain that level across five sets.
For a team coming off an undefeated run through the conference, the first WCC match of 2026 served as an early reminder: this season does not have to look like the last one for USD to make another run at postseason volleyball.
The Toreros remain at home for the first few games of WCC play, with the University of the Pacific coming into town on Saturday at 12 p.m. Watch on ESPN+ or buy tickets here.
Web photo: Thomas Christensen
