USU volleyball sends Highlanders packing
The lead changed for one-point the entire match.
In the third game of the women’s volleyball match Thursday in the Spectrum, the University of California Riverside (5-11, 1-5) took the lead, 13-12, over Utah State (2-4, 8-8).
USU promptly regained the lead though and closed out the Highlanders for a three-game sweep, 30-21, 30-18, 30-19.
After the Highlanders took the lead, two kills by Aggie middle blocker Erin Cartwright regained the lead for USU. UCR tied the game at 14-14, but the Aggies ran off seven straight points, highlighted by back-to-back Cartwright jump-serve aces.
“We’ve been working on her jump serve for the last week to 10 days and this was the first time she felt comfortable putting it in the match,” said Aggie Head Coach Burt Fuller. “As she gets in a rhythm with her toss and picking spots on the court, her tempo can pick up and that’s only going to help us.”
The Aggies finished out the match with a five-point run, three of the points off kills by Cartwright.
Cartwright finished with a match-high 16 kills and hit .560.
UCR middle blocker Katie DeRoos led the Highlanders with seven kills.
In the match, the Aggies were able to out-serve the Highlanders, recording five aces while UCR had none.
“After some of our last couple of games when we haven’t had some good serving ratios, errors to aces, coach has really pushed focusing on serving well because serving is an individual thing,” said outside hitter Shauni Fluckiger.
USU was also able to put UC Riverside into trouble off the serve, forcing the Highlanders to overpass the ball back to the net where the Aggies pounced on it for easy kills.
“We had about three or four overpass kills tonight, and that’s always helpful – those are easy points,” Fuller said. “Those aren’t aces, but it’s just the same as an ace and that’s always going to help us.”
Aggie middle blocker Ingrid Roth said, “It’s an easier attack than it is to throw in other factors like the pass or set. Coach is trying to get me sweep more instead of just hit, but when you have the opportunity to try and slam it as hard as you can, you’re going to try and take it.”
When the Aggies weren’t scoring off the serve, they were able to hit around UC Riverside’s block. UCR only had one block, a solo by outside hitter Pam Hartman in the third game. Utah State finished with seven blocks.
The Aggies weren’t completely flawless, though, and still need to work on the left side of their offense, Fuller said.
On the left side, outside hitter Tereza Cernianska hit .320 with 10 kills, Fluckiger had two kills and hit .143 and middle blocker Jenna Jordan had four kills and hit .000.
“We need to spend more time on our lefts,” Fuller said. “If we can have two hitters over .200 on the outside, that’s really going to help us and we haven’t really been able to establish that with consistency this year.”
The Aggie middle and right side took up the slack, though. Besides Cartwright’s game leading performance, Roth had nine kills with a .333 average and middle blocker Hailey Seedall hit .455 with five kills.
“We’ve been working on trying to get [Roth] up in transition and she did a nice job putting balls away,” Fuller said. “Our right side, between Hailey and Erin, that’s a staple for us, but we still need more support for the left.”
The Aggies will finish out their three-game homestand with a Big West Conference match against California State University Fullerton Saturday.
“We’re just going to try and keep the momentum we have going this week and come out with some fire and intensity and try and get our job done,” Roth said.
Fullerton, (4-14, 0-5) was last in Big West action Thursday against the University of Idaho.
“Every match here is a big match,” Fuller said. “We’re 2-4 in the conference, and here’s a chance to get 3-4. We’ve got to have an opportunity to keep sliding up in the conference and that will bode well for us.”
-slbk5@cc.usu.edu