Men’s volleyball finishes 3rd
It may not be surprising the No.-2 ranked Division I team won its own volleyball tournament, but a Division II team finishing third among a lineup of strong regional teams is a bit different.
It’s just what the No.-6 ranked Division II Utah State men’s club volleyball team did though, finishing behind a pair of Division I teams at the University of Arizona on Saturday. During the two-day tournament, the Aggies went 7-1, ending behind No. 2 Arizona and No. 20 Arizona State. USU’s only loss was to ASU.
“I’m pretty pleased. Overall, I’m definitely pleased,” said USU middle blocker Joe Anderson.
Club teams are divided into divisions based on what level they want to play at. The Aggies chose to play in Division II because it was where they would be most competitive instead of playing at the higher level, said USU Head Coach Adam Longmore.
Utah State started the tournament Friday by sweeping all three of its pool play matches, defeating Southern Utah, Salt Lake Community College, and UNLV.
In their previous match-up with UNLV last fall, the Aggies lost and were looking for some redemption, especially since UNLV is ranked No. 15 in Division I.
“In my opinion I think we played our best match of the year [against] UNLV,” Anderson said. “We just took them out of their game and we blew them out pretty good.”
Utah State finished pool play Saturday with victories over Idaho State and UVSC. The Aggies suffered a loss against UVSC in a 2-1 win.
Going into tournament play the Aggies were seeded second, drawing a rematch against UNLV. It was closer than the first time, but USU was able to earn the 2-1 victory.
In the second round USU faced ASU, suffering its only stumble of the tournament and getting swept 2-0.
Longmore said the team played great against UNLV, but the game style was completely different than that of ASU.
“I don’t know if some of the things carried over mentally and got in the way against ASU,” Longmore said. “We made some blocking errors that were pretty uncharacteristic of us. When we started making those, things went in the tank mentally.”
USU setter Cliff Plowman said, “That [match] was a fluke. We just fell apart for one match.”
With the loss, the Aggies dropped to the third place game against the Arizona B team, the winner of last year’s Division II national championship.
It only took USU two games to seal the
victory.
The biggest difference in their performance was that the Aggies played as a team, Longmore said.
“I think we’re really just starting to come together,” he said. “For the first time this weekend I saw some great things happening as far as a team goes. We’re starting to really gel.”
Plowman said, “This tournament is a really big stepping stone for this team. We’ve finally come together and [have] learned to win. I think from here on out we’ll just keep getting better.”
A third-place finish will also be beneficial to the team in the rankings and seedings for future tournaments, Longmore said.
“We’ll have a higher seed going in which means we’ll play weaker teams,” he said. “That in itself helps us feel good about ourselves.”
The USU B team finished 10th in the tournament, but Longmore said he really wasn’t concerned about that because the players were just there to gain match experience.
“We only have one team at Utah State,” he said. “We have an A team, and we happened to form two teams out of that. They went down there to get better and to improve and gain a lot of experience.”
In its tournaments the remainder of the season, USU will only be playing as one team,Longmore said this will be beneficial in providing substitutes and also letting all the players play together as one team.
The Aggies will now have a week off. Their next tournament is March 7 and 8 at UNLV.
–slbk5@cc.usu.edu