Utah State Volleyball falls to UCLA in 2026 home opener

Utah State Volleyball opened its home campaign with a 3-0 loss against UCLA on Wednesday in the Wayne Estes Center. With the loss, the Aggies move to 0-6 on the season.

“I think our outings have been better every single time; it’s a really, really good UCLA team, and I think we had moments of higher-level volleyball than we’ve shown all season,” head coach Keith Smith said after the match. “I think the Estes is — I haven’t been to other places in the Pac-12 yet, but it’s going to be hard to find a place better to be for your home court.”

The Aggies have played a grueling non-conference schedule to open Smith’s inaugural season, as they have yet to take on a team that finished below 64^th in the country in last season’s KPI rankings. The Bruins were no exception, as they finished 35^th in last season’s final NCAA RPI ranking.

“One of the things we’re talking about first of all is we are in our hard right now, and that’s the way the schedule is designed,” Smith said. “Let’s have our hard in September, and when we get to the conference in October, we’re in the easy times. Our main focus has been getting better every single day.”

The Aggies got off to a sluggish start in front of the rowdy home crowd of 1,320, falling behind 7-0 to open the first set.

They found their footing later in the first set, pulling within three points at 22-19, but didn’t have enough to pull off the first-set comeback, falling 25-20.

“In our communication after set one is we, minus that first seven, eight-point run, we won that set, and honestly played some really high-level volleyball,” Smith said. “I think the same thing happened in set two. We were doing a really good job in the service line and just didn’t quite have it.”

The second set got off to a similar start, but this time with the roles reversed. Utah State got out to an early 8-5 lead, prompting a quick timeout from UCLA. The Aggies grew their lead to as big as 14-8, but a 7-1 run from the Bruins tied it at 15 and forced a timeout from Smith.

The set stayed close, with the teams knotted at 19, but the Bruins made the plays down the stretch, with the help of a couple of Aggie service errors, to close the set out 25-22.

UCLA led the third set from the jump, winning the final set 25-20 to close out the match. The Aggies kept it close to start, trailing just 9-8 before another 7-1 Bruin run stretched the lead out.

“They have some of the best middles we’re going to play all year. They set their middles more than anyone else, which provides a huge challenge,” Smith said. “I think they were number two in the country in percentage of offense out of the middle before this match, and it went up.”

The Aggies at times found some rhythm offensively but still struggled to find consistent production throughout the match. Utah State posted a .133 kill percentage while facing a .253 kill percentage from the Bruins.

“We’re just trying to figure out where people need to go a little bit more. Every line, we’re getting closer and closer to our lineup,” Smith said. “As we get our lineup, we’re going to be able to dive into where we need to put people and situations, and I think our offense is going to get better pretty quickly over the next two weeks.”

The Aggies will have another test coming their way on Friday, as they’ll host in-state rival Utah in the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum at 7 pm.