Aggie spikers fall in straight games to UCI
The Utah State women’s volleyball season is far from over. The Aggies have just hit a couple of road blocks in the last couple of matches against perhaps the top tier of the Big West Conference.
After falling in three to Long Beach State on Thursday, the Aggies came up short against Saturday Big West Conference leader UC Irvine. The Anteaters knocked off USU in three games 30-27, 30-23, 37-35.
UCI controlled much of the first two games, hitting .436 and .250, respectively. After putting up a decent offensive showing in the first game (hitting .348), the Aggies crumbled in the second game, hitting a mere .061.
If something could go wrong in the first two games it did. The Aggies stood still as balls were called in. Communication was non-existent on the court, and outside hitters weren’t getting the sets they needed.
The outcome: The Anteaters got a lot of easy points.
“It’s disappointing,” said Utah State Head Coach Burt Fuller. “That stuff doesn’t happen in practice. We’ve got to make it happen in the matches.”
USU outside hitter Erin Cartwright said, “After one play like that, you just start wigging out and things start happening. Then you start thinking, please call a time out, because you can’t get reorganized. It’s just error after error after error.”
Utah State responded in the third set, though.
The Aggies built a 24-17 lead before the Anteaters fought back to eventually win the contest.
UCI didn’t want to lose. They felt the heartache of defeat on Thursday as Idaho came back to win the final three games for the match victory.
“We kind of wanted to make sure we didn’t go to four or five after that,” said UC Irvine Head Coach Charlie Brande.
Perhaps the Anteaters were able to dominate the match and stage a comeback in part because of their middle blockers.
Dana Kurzbard finished with 10 kills and a .450 hitting percentage and Sami Cash led UCI with 14 kills and a .685 hitting percentage.
Fuller said he knew the power UCI possessed, but understood that the middles were putting up high numbers against all of their opponents.
The Anteaters scored nine out of 11 points at the end of the third game to tie it at 26. Utah State was able to fight off five match points, but a kill by Kelly Wing iced the victory for UCI.
Wing finished with 15 kills and 11 digs.
Cartwright led Utah State with 18 kills. Beth Hodge and Mari Ruddick added 10 apiece.
The Aggies were still a little off-balance without outside hitter Zuzana Cernianska who is out with an injured elbow.
In her place, Erin Graybill led USU in hitting at .389. She had nine kills with only two errors and also added a service ace.
Her performance against UCI was more encouraging than her play against LBSU, and Fuller noticed the difference.
“[Graybill] did a nice job hitting the ball,” Fuller said. “She’s a good athlete, she’s strong, she’s quick … she just needs more experience.”
Graybill said, “I felt a little better. I decided that I wasn’t going to worry too much about what [the other team was] doing and [focus] on playing with my team.”
Cartwright said she thought Graybill made some key plays for USU on the court and played more like she was used to seeing her play.
Fuller also gave freshman Dominique Arsenault some playing time for the first time this season in place of USU’s regular setter Andrea Delsigne.
“There’s an old saying in volleyball that if an outside hitter is playing bad then change the outside hitter,” Fuller said. “If the middle is playing bad then change the middle. If everyone is playing bad then change the setter.
“It wasn’t necessarily Andrea playing bad, but we needed something different, we needed a change of tempo,” he said.
And that is exactly what Arsenault did in the second half of the contest.
-juag@cc.usu.edu
Utah State outside hitter Erin Cartwright hits the ball over the net as Anteaters Terbrie Taylor (left) and Sami Cash prepare for the block. (Photo by John Zsiray)