Men’s volleyball club takes third
The Utah State University men’s club volleyball A team played deep into its first tournament of the season Saturday before earning a third place finish.
Utah State’s B team was eliminated earlier, but finished a respectiveseventh.
The tournament was hosted by USU, with 16 teams participating. Play took place on Friday and Saturday in the HPER Building.
Friday afternoon teams were divided into four pools and played the other three teams in their pool to determine brackets for double elimination on Saturday.
In its pool, the A team won all three of its matches, finishing 6-1 on the day and taking first.
The B team started out slower, losing early, but recovering to win their final match and finish 3-4, placing them second in their pool.
Due to the number of teams participating, matches were shortened to the best of three games. For double elimination on Saturday, consolation bracket matches were only one game.
On Saturday, the A team started the day strong, sweeping their first three matches to earn a spot in the winner’s bracket championship game. There the Aggies were tripped up by the eventual tournament champions, the University of Utah, losing 0-2.
The loss put the Aggies into the consolation bracket for a rematch against Club Magic, a Provo club team. The Aggies had previously swept Magic, but in the one-game match, Magic came out on top, eliminating the Aggies and moving back into the winner’s bracket to face Utah in the championship game.
In the championship game, Utah went on to sweep Magic, going undefeated and compiling a perfect 16-0 game record for the tournament.
“They [Utah] are much better than they were last year,” A team captain Greg Jorgenson said. “For the most part, everyone is.”
“Utah is one of the toughest teams in the nation,” A team captain Adam Longmore said.
The USU B team also started the day strong. It defeated UVSC in the first round of double elimination, but was defeated by Utah in the next match.
The loss dropped the B team to the consolation bracket, where, despite a comeback at the end, they fell to the Idaho State University A team.
Team captains from both the A and B squads said the tournament was a good experience and helped the teams to learn.
“We had some bugs to work out,” Jorgenson said. “It’s early still so we’re not too worried.”
B team captain Justin Keith said, “For new players, the experience will help a lot in the future.”
The tournament also gave both teams an opportunity to see what they need to work and where they have improved.
“We’re really streaky,” B team captain Brad Schow said. “Once we get our consistency down and eliminate some errors, we can stick with anyone.”
Keith said, “We have good communication and team work. Our overall camaraderie is great.”
For the A team, both Jorgenson and Longmore said the team’s blocking was strong.
“Our blocking was good,” Jorgenson said. “In our communication and chemistry, those intangibles you can’t work on in practice, we took a big step.”
Longmore said, “We blocked well. That’s what gave us the [first] win against Magic. I’m happy with how our middles [middle blockers] performed against Magic.”
The Aggies will next play on Tuesday when they travel to Pocatello, Idaho to play Idaho State University.