Oregon rallied from two games down and staved off elimination three times in the fourth game to stun No. 9 seed K-State and 1,261 at Ahearn Field House with a 3-2 win (24-30, 20-30, 30-27, 36-34, 15-11) in the second round of the Division I Volleyball Tournament.
Kansas State, ranked 11th in the nation, saw its season come to an end with a 23-9 record, while No. 13 Oregon (22-10), which recorded the most wins in school history since 1986, advanced to play UCLA in the regional semifinals next Friday in Stanford, Calif.
Afterwards K-State coach Suzie Fritz was in tears as she realized the season was over.
"I thought for two games we played really solid volleyball," she said. "I thought we played as well as we have all year. As the match evolved with their serve, with their blocks, we started forcing things. I have to probably go back (and look at the film).... but at critical times we made errors."
The Wildcats had Oregon on the ropes three times late but couldn't finish. K-State's last chance to end the fourth game and match came with a 34-33 lead after a Natalya Korobkova kill.
But Gorana Maricic responded with a game-saving kill. Kristen Forristall dumped in a point for a one-point lead and Sonja Newcombe followed with the game-winning kill.
"I didn't want to go home," Newcombe said. "We talked about emptying the tank (at the break) and playing hard in the fourth game."
In the fifth and final game, Oregon came out aggressive and had a 9-8 lead. On the next play K-State libero Angie Lastra saved a shot from going out of bounds with a one-handed dig and later in the volley Stacey Spiegelberg finished it off with a kill.
However, Oregon responded with four straight points, ending with Kansas State and Manhattan native Megan Farr being called for a lift.
The Ducks' Heather Meyers' kill later gave Oregon a 14-11 lead and Karen Waddington ended the match by stuff blocking Korobkova's kill attempt.
"I struggled in the first couple of games but figure it out in the end," Waddington said. "I went up strong like I was supposed to, and it felt good."
Kansas State won the first two games pretty soundly, pulling away from Oregon in the second game with a 9-1 run to end the game.
Oregon didn't grab their first lead of the entire match until taking a 2-1 lead in the opening moments of the third game. The Ducks began to pull away in the middle game and took advantage of K-State serving errors, which finished with 11 at the line and 31 total errors.
"I don't relax until it's over," Fritz said. "I thought we were really playing at a very high level. But we didn't keep the pedal down on them. With a team like that we knew that they could keep going."
It was the first time in five tries that Oregon rallied from a 2-0 deficit.
"They (the Ducks) willed it not to happen," said Oregon coach Jim Moore, who coached at K-State from 1994 to 1996. "It's the first time. You just have to come over that hump and they did."
Three Kansas State seniors' careers ended — Lauren Rosenthal, Spiegelberg and Lastra.
Lastra, a native of Puerto Rico, broke the single-season digs record with 20 Saturday to give her 575 for the season. The previous record was set by Laura Downey's 558 in 2002.
"It was a great opportunity to come here," a teary-eyed Lastra said afterwards. "I'm glad I came here."
Rita Liliom finished with a match-high 27 kills, Korobkova added 16, Kelsey Chipman had 14 and Farr recorded 10.
Newcombe led Oregon with 22 kills and Maricic added 18.
