Aggies complete historic 18-0 MW run with Senior Day win over Nevada
Utah State finished the regular season exactly the way it set out to: with a well-rounded, efficient win to finish undefeated in conference play. The Aggies closed with a 3-0 victory — 25-18, 25-20, 28-26 — over Nevada on Senior Day, completing an 18-0 Mountain West slate. It’s only the second perfect conference campaign in program history, and it extended the team’s winning streak to 19 straight.
The celebration before the match carried the usual Senior Day weight as senior middle blocker Tierney Barlow and redshirt junior libero Kendel Thompson were honored and sophomore setter Kaylie Kofe was recognized after reaching 2,000 career assists earlier in the week.
Barlow, who recently passed 1,000 career kills, kept piling on in the Wayne Estes Center, mixing in her usual slides and putaways. Thompson delivered the kind of steady, hustle-filled performance that has defined her role all season, tallying 2 aces and 11 digs. Kofe, averaging the fourth-highest assists per set in the country, ran a varied attack. She sprinkled in her patented dump kills and added an ace, keeping Nevada off balance all afternoon.
Utah State’s win was a team effort in the truest sense. Nevada tested the Aggies early with heavy swings and aggressive serving, but USU’s depth and balance pulled it through. Outside hitter Andrea Simovski produced early pressure with back-to-back aces. Middle blocker Lauren Larkin and opposite hitter Loryn Helgesen made immediate impacts at the net. Outside hitter Mara Stiglic led the match with 15 kills and sealed the victory with a decisive down-the-line kill.
The final set was the tightest. Nevada led late and had match points, but Utah State answered with a Stiglic/Barlow block, a Barlow ace and the final Stiglic winner after a video review confirmed the point.
“Their work and the way they pushed each other all year made this possible,” said head coach Rob Neilson. “Finishing perfect in conference is historical, and they deserve it. We’re deep, we’re talented, and we’ve had so many players contribute at every point of the season.”
The Aggies’ flawless Mountain West run looks nothing like the way they began the season. After a brutal nonconference stretch that included ranked opponents Texas A&M, Utah, Stanford and BYU — plus strong mid-majors such as San Diego and Marquette — the Aggies started 2-7.
That early slate, though, raised the team’s ceiling, and once conference play began, Utah State didn’t lose. The 19-match streak that includes the 18 conference wins is the product of a team that plays with competitiveness and composure, an unusual combination for a roster filled with mostly first-years and sophomores.
“I think it comes to our competitiveness,” Kofe said on the “Statesman Sports Desk” podcast. “We all just want to win, and we all have the same goal. Our upperclassmen — Kendal and Tierney and Liv — have this maturity and calmness on the court. In tight moments we haven’t experienced yet as underclassmen, that helps us so much.”
Rather than recruiting veteran players in the transfer portal, Utah State turned its youth into an advantage. The Aggies distributed responsibility across multiple players all season, with six players recording 15 or more service aces and three — Thompson, Simovski and Stiglic — ranking among the top servers in the Mountain West.
No team in the conference can match the Aggies’ versatility. Stiglic and Simovski, both over 6 feet, contributed not just as front-row attackers but as dependable back-row defenders. And as a 5-foot-eight-inch setter, Kofe still finished the regular season with 32 blocks, rising to the same vertical peak as defenders who were often around six inches taller.
Early in the year Utah State’s blocking was a concern, and the team ranked last in the conference for much of the first half, but the unit improved steadily and finished No. 7 in the MW at 2.28 blocks per set. Larkin emerged as a reliable presence inside and ended the year among the conference’s top blockers.
Neilson pointed to the depth as a strategic advantage going into postseason play.
“To have basically all-conference weapons at every spot is pretty scary for other teams,” he said. “It allows us to make adjustments on the fly.”
As the top seed in the Mountain West tournament, Utah State earns a first-round bye and will face the winner of No. 4 Boise State vs. No. 5 Grand Canyon in the semifinals on Friday, Nov. 28 at 1 p.m. in Las Vegas.
Neilson warned the standard will rise there.
“We’re going to have to play better than we have the last couple matches — a little cleaner, a little more aggressive,” he said. “But this team is great at rising to challenges.”
For Barlow and Thompson, the Senior Day sweep was both a joyful culmination of their success and an emotional farewell.
“I’m so grateful I got to do it with these girls and with these amazing coaches,” Thompson said. “I love it here. I love the crowd, and I love the fans. The HURD is awesome.”
Barlow said she wanted to finish strong, and she did — averaging 3.6 kills per set with an absurd .692 hitting percentage over her final five matches.
“I think for sure that played into it,” Barlow said. “It’s hard to say goodbye. I wanted to end with a bang.”
The record is now set with a team that began the year with more questions than answers and closed it winning every match in league play. They ended undefeated in the Mountain West, with a 19-match winning streak and a roster that looks young on paper but veteran in how it responds in the clutch. If anything, the final scenes at the Estes felt less like an ending and more like the start of something the program hopes can be sustained deep into postseason play.
“I told my teammates during this game, ‘Let’s prepare now,'” Barlow said. “‘Let’s play like we’re playing a championship game right now.’ So, I think we’re trying to switch that mindset.”