Golden Eagles Fall In Four In Tournament Opener

Next Match:

Colorado Mesa

9/12/2025 | 6:30 p.m.

Sep. 12 (Fri) / 6:30 p.m.

 Colorado Mesa

History

LOS ANGELES — Cal State LA’s women’s volleyball team had some amazing comebacks last week in Hawaii, but Simon Fraser put an end to any notions of a repeat performance on Thursday.

The Golden Eagles evened the match at a set each, but the Red Leafs took over from there and posted a 25-20, 14-25, 25-18, 25-9 win in the opening match of the Cal State Invitational. Simon Fraser (4-0) remained unbeaten and improved to 3-0 against California Collegiate Athletic Association teams following earlier wins over San Francisco State and Cal Poly Pomona.

Cal State LA (3-2) led from start to finish in the second set, but Simon Fraser took command early in the third set and did the same to close out the contest in the fourth.

Samarah DaCoud had 11 kills, four blocks and four digs for Cal State LA, while Ayjah Landers had eight kills, two blocks and 11 digs.

Natalie Lemoine-Sells had a match-high 15 kills for Simon Fraser, while Megan Hawkins had 11 kills and 11 digs.

Zuhal Cetin had eight kills and 10 digs for the Golden Eagles, while Arielle Chandler had 21 set assists and seven digs.

Simon Fraser had a 40-35 edge in kills and a 15-7.5 advantage in blocks. Simon Fraser outhit the Golden Eagles, .176 – .035 and had nine service aces with seven errors to seven aces and eight errors for the Golden Eagles.

The Golden Eagles were held to a negative hitting percentage in the last two sets.

After dropping the first set, the Golden Eagles jumped out to a 9-1 lead in the second set and never looked back. Back-to-back aces from DaCoud pushed the lead to 23-11 and a pair of attack errors gave the Golden Eagles the set and evened the match.

Cal State LA led early in the third set, 4-3, but Simon Fraser went on a 10-0 run to take a 13-4 lead. The Red Leafs opened up a 21-9 lead before the Golden Eagles made a late push, pulling to within 23-18 after back-to-back kills from Cetin. Simon Fraser, though, got to set point on a service error and closed out the set with a kill from Hawkins.

Simon Fraser jumped out to a 10-3 lead in the final set and extended the lead to 23-8 before finishing the match.

There will be three matches on Friday with Cal Poly Pomona facing Colorado Mesa at 11 a.m., Cal Poly Pomona coming back to face Simon Fraser at 4:30 p.m. and Cal State LA meeting Colorado Mesa in the final match of the day.