Aggie volleyball gets first win of season
The Aggie women had their first win of the season against Idaho State on Wednesday defeating the Bengals three games to one.
“We enjoyed it,” Utah State Head Coach Burt Fuller said. “We went in there and did what we needed to do.”
In the first game Idaho came out strong and hit an incredible .305 in the opening match. Although the Aggies had 19 kills to the Bengals 17, they were unable to pull out a win the first match and fell 25-30.
“We didn’t have to change much [after the first game].” Fuller said. “We just had to do things better … transition better. We started the rotation the same way, but we cut down on errors we were giving them.”
In the match, USU had 21 unforced errors while the Bengals only had 17.
“That’s giving them 21 points right there,” Fuller said, “we had to do some things to change.”
The Ags weren’t about to give the Bengals another win, and in the second game they came out on fire defensively. For the rest of the match they kept the Bengals at a .128 hitting percentage.
Junior Zuzana Cernianska led the way for the Aggies hitting a powerful 24 kills, along with 25 assists and four blocks, a triple-double.
Senior Kindy Peterson and freshman Carolyn Forbush proved strong for the Aggie offense recording 18 and 17 kills respectively.
“Carolyn had so much potential,” said Fuller. “She is a great kid, really strong and explosive. [We need] to get her mentally playing at the level she can play at.”
Other Aggies also contributed to the win. Sophomore Dominique Arsenault led the way for Utah State in assists, putting the ball up 40 times. Sophomore libero Kelsi Thoman put up 16 digs from back court.
The outside hitters, like Cernianska, Forbush and Peterson, had a hitting percentage just under .300.
“I think if your outside hits .200 it’s OK,” Fuller said. “Anywhere close to .300 is pretty good.”
The Aggies easily won the second game 30-24, but during the third game, the Bengals were a threat.
Fuller said that the Ags were up 25-21 and waiting for the win, until the Bengals caught up and tied the game at 26.
“It was a pivotal game. They went up 2-1, then we went up 2-1,” he said. “We’re happy to have hung in there. It was important for us to have this win going into the fourth game.”
With 12 kills each, Kamie Olsen and Ali Gorny led the way for the Bengals along with 44 assists from Martha Brinton. Heather Kinnison also helped the Bengals with 11 kills and six blocks.
USU won the fourth game 30-24 for the match. Its next game is in Salt Lake against Utah on Sept. 11.
“We’re going to have to serve better,” Fuller said about what the Aggies were going to work on going into this match.
Fuller said that the team missed 15 serves in the last four matches. Fortunately, he said, ISU didn’t serve any better and let them off the hook Wednesday night.
“[But] we’ll have to serve much better,” Fuller said. “They are a lot bigger team than we are, but I think we have demonstrated we can play with big teams like Stanford, St. Mary’s and Utah.”
-aedmunds@cc.usu.edu