49ers find gold in Spectrum
Things looked good for the Utah State University women’s volleyball team at the start of its match against No. 1 and undefeated Long Beach State University.
USU (16-9, 10-5 in the Big West Conference) was up 6-2 and had consecutive blocks against the vaunted Niner attackers. However, it wouldn’t last as the Niners went on a 13-1 run en route to a 30-16, 30-22, 30-24 victory over the Aggies Thursday night in the Spectrum.
“That’s a very good team,” USU Head Coach Burt Fuller said of LBSU. “They have two All-Americans [and] probably a Player of the Year candidate [Cheryl Weaver].”
It didn’t take long for Weaver to show the Aggie fans she is a legitimate National Player of the Year candidate. For the match, Weaver hit an astounding .625 with 15 kills, including an unreal hitting percentage of .917 after two games.
“She’s [Weaver] a great player,” Fuller said. “She’s an All-World player. She’s going to go off to the [U.S.] National Team and play well at that level and still have this kind of success.”
After jumping out to the quick lead in the first game, the Aggies were a little out of sync offensively, both Fuller and senior Setter Chelsi Neves said. LBSU was able to string together three runs of at least five-straight points to effectively put the game away.
“I think at first we tried to be too precise [and] tried to hit it right on the line,” Neves said.
In the first game, Long Beach (22-0, 15-0 in league play) hit a whooping .538 while holding the Aggies to .000. The Niners hit .398 on the night.
Like the end of the first game, the Niners opened the second game firing on all cylinders, taking a 9-4 lead behind the strong jump-serve of outside hitter Brittany Hochevar. Hochevar had two aces during that stretch.
However, the Aggies refused to go down without a fight.
Two three-point runs sandwiched between an LBSU kill gave the Aggies a 10-9 lead and the game was a back-and-forth affair with the Aggies down only 19-17.
“I thought we felt a little more comfortable as the [match] went on,” Fuller said.
Neves said, “We started calming down as the match went on. We pulled through and started playing our game.”
Like they did all night, the Niners turned to Weaver when the match was close and she delivered. Two straight kills by Weaver gave LBSU the momentum it needed to take the 2-0 lead.
Another player that came up big for Long Beach was its other All-American candidate, 6-foot-7 middle blocker Tayyiba Haneef. Haneef finished the second game with six kills and hit a match-high 18 kills.
Both teams traded points to start game three as there were seven lead changes throughout the course of the third game.
Several hustle plays gave the Aggies a slim advantage for the first half of the game, Fuller said.
“We had some great defensive effort in the third game,” Fuller said. “We had a couple of great rallies and that was nice to see.”
With the score deadlocked at 20-20, the Niners turned to Haneef and Weaver and the duo combined for five kills. Haneef had a block and an ace to seal the victory for the Niners.
Pacing the Aggies were outside hitters Shauni Fluckiger and Lisa Borom, who finished with 13 and 12 kills, respectively.
Sophomore Erin Cartwright added 10 kills for USU.
“They just have a great system with great athletes,” Fuller said.
USU will return to action on Saturday night in the Spectrum against the University of California, Irvine.
“Irvine is very young, they play with four or five starting freshmen,” Fuller said. “But we give them the same respect as we gave [LBSU] and we prepare the same way we prepared for [LBSU].”