Aggie spikers swept by No. 20 Pacific
The No. 20 Pacific Tigers have one key player they look to – senior Jennifer Joines. The middle blocker led UOP to a 3-0 victory (30-23, 30-28, 30-27) over Utah State in Stockton, Calif. on Saturday.
Joines led all attackers with 23 kills in the match.
The Tigers moved to 7-2 on the season and 2-0 in Big West Conference play, while USU fell to 7-4 and 1-1.
“We didn’t pass very well and Pacific had a lot of jump servers that slowed us down a little bit,” said Aggie Head Coach Burt Fuller in a phone interview. “We were able to score points on them when we got the ball to our setter [Andrea Delsigne], but we weren’t able to do that consistently.”
Despite a solid offensive effort in the first game, USU was not able to control Pacific’s attack. The Tigers hit .300 in every game.
Joines had eight kills in the first game and UOP rallied for seven of the final eight points for the victory.
Utah State hit .220 in game one, before hitting .310 in game two and .297 in game three.
Aggie middle blocker Erin Cartwright recorded a team-high 19 kills and hit .405, while opposite side hitter Zuzana Cernianska chipped in 12 kills and 13 digs.
Fuller said he was also impressed with the attacking of middle blocker Ingrid Roth, but the team was not able to get the ball to her enough. She finished with eight kills and hit .385.
Joines hit .583 for the Tigers.
The Aggies out-dug Pacific (44-39) but had two fewer kills (54-56) and five more hitting errors (21-16).
The Aggies began focusing on the University of Utah on Sunday afternoon. Utah State hosts the Utes at 6 p.m. on Tuesday.
Utah holds a 36-22 all-time advantage of the Aggies, including a 12-9 lead in games held at the Spectrum.
The last time Utah State came out on top of a match was in October of 2000 when the Aggies defeated the Utes in four games.
USU has lost three straight matches to Utah.
“It will be nice to play another match at home,” Fuller said after being on the road for the last seven contests. “Utah is a very good program. It will be a good test for us. We are looking forward to playing them.”
Utah improved to 6-4 on the season with a 3-1 win (30-15, 26-30, 30-23, 30-16) over Weber State in Salt Lake over the weekend.
-juag@cc.usu.edu