Volleyball opens with scrimmage against Idaho State

The volleyball team opened its spring season Friday afternoon with a scrimmage against Idaho State at the Wayne Estes Center.

The teams played four sets, and USU lost all four.

“We’re learning. We’re young and inexperienced and so we’ve got to learn some stuff,” said head coach Grayson DuBose. “That’s what I’m going to take away from it, and that’s what these guys will take away as well.”

The Aggies last played the Bengals in August when they won 3-1. This season, however, USU has lost six of the 10 players who played in the game in August, due to graduation and other factors.

“A lot of spring is playing against ourselves because we don’t have that many matches,” said Kayla DeCoursey, opposite side hitter for Utah State. “So it was good just to come out and play against another team and kind of see how we match up.”

Before the game, the team performed various drills. Outside hitter Rachel Gale thought that, while the team performed well in the drills, the scrimmage’s game setting proved difficult.

“In the drills we played really well, but we don’t have enough players to do scrimmaging in practice, so we haven’t had like a 6-on-6 situation,” Gale said. “We didn’t do as well as we were expecting.”

DuBose said that in practices the team concentrates on being in system and speeding up their offense.

“I’m looking forward to us just getting a little bit better,” DuBose said. “That’s always been the emphasis for us, I think, is taking care of our side, taking care of us.”

Despite the loss, DeCoursey said the team feels confident in the upcoming spring season.

“I think we have a lot of passion for the game,” DeCoursey said. “We’re a young team, so we’re not old and tired out, and so we’re just really excited to play the game.”

— olivia.webb@aggiemail.usu.edu

Twitter: @OliviaWebb77