Aggies defeat Cal State Northridge in hree games
By Landon Olson
The Utah State University women’s volleyball team extended their winning streak to five games after defeating the California State University Northridge Matadors in three games on Saturday night in the Spectrum.
Utah State won the match 30-27, 30-26, 30-21, moving them to 6-1 in the Big West Conference, 9-4 overall.
The first game started well for the Aggies as they scored the first two points, but the game quickly turned into a battle as Northridge began to match the Aggies point for point. Neither team was able to take a controlling lead in the game, and instead had to rely on short-scoring runs.
Northridge held their first lead at 17-16 only briefly, but were able to make a three-point run to go up 22-20. USU responded quickly, making a three-point run of their own to regain the lead for good at 25-24. Another run put the game away as the Aggies went up 28-25 and earned the first game victory, 30-27.
Both teams had difficulty finding their rhythm in the first game as the Aggies only hit .150, and were able to hold Northridge to .118 hitting.
“We came out a little bit flat. I know we spent a lot of energy on Thursday night [against Pacific], but so did Northridge up in Idaho,” USU head coach Burt Fuller said.
In contrast to the balanced Aggie attack in which six players had kills, Northridge only had three players earning kills in the first game.
Game two started very differently from game one and looked like it was going to be a runaway as Northridge scored five straight points to go up 5-1. The Matadors extended their lead to eight at 11-3 and held the lead at 15-7 after trading four points with the Aggies.
Trailing by eight, Utah State was able to run off seven straight points capitalizing off strong blocking by outside hitter Erin Cartwright and three hitting errors by Northridge.
Utah State then tied the game at 18-18 and the Aggies took their first lead since 1-0 at 24-23. Once Utah State took the lead, the Matadors were not able to recover and Utah State scored the final three points to take game two.
“They were a lot better to start game two and our kids didn’t respond until late,” Fuller said. “Fortunately we responded soon enough so that we could get ahead. It was a great comeback by our kids but it was disappointing to see them start a game like that.”
Middle blocker Michelle Matheson said, “We may have just taken them for granted since we won the first game and we didn’t come out as strong as we should have.”
The Aggie victory in game two clearly swung the match in USU’s favor, putting Utah State up 2-0 and giving them the momentum going into game three.
“That had to be pretty tough on Northridge to have a big lead and let it slip away. They might have been a little dejected,” Fuller said.
The Aggies seemed more relaxed in game two. Utah State jumped out to a quick 8-3 lead and never looked back. Northridge would get as close as three at 10-7, but the Aggies pulled away and won the third game 30-21.
“We beat them by nine but it didn’t feel like a nine-point win, that’s for sure,” Fuller said.
“We were adjusted,” Matheson said. “We knew we were doing better and we just had to relax. That was our biggest thing, we just had to relax and play.”
Setter Chelsi Neves said, “It’s always good to come out strong in the third game and not give them any leeway. I think the momentum did carry from the second half of the second game into the third game.”
In game three, the Aggies were led by outside hitter Lisa Borom, who had nine kills in the game and a match high 18 kills total. Borom also had 10 digs and three blocks for the match.
“Lisa had a good night,” Fuller said.
The Aggie defense also held strong in game three, holding Northridge to .214 hitting for the game, .180 for the match. The Aggies hit .436 in game three with 20 kills and only three errors.
“We had a nice finish there,” Fuller said. “We hit .436 in the third game and that really helped us out.”
The Matadors gave the Aggies difficulty early in the match, but by the third game, Utah State had adjusted. The Aggies hitting percentage increased in each game and they hit .262 for the match.
“When you first start a game you don’t really know where
they’re at and
you have to make adjustments through the game,” Matheson said. “That’s one thing I think we did really well. We adjusted to what they were doing.”
Fuller said, “They do a real nice job on their outsides of tooling the block. I thought we made a couple of adjustments down the stretch so we weren’t getting tooled as much.”
Utah State only used eight players in the match, but following the game Fuller gave a lot of credit to the rest of his team.
“What people don’t realize out there is that we have a lot of good kids that aren’t playing. We have a lot of good kids that are making us better every day in practice,” Fuller said. “I kind of tell that to them, people don’t get a chance to see them as much but that’s the reason we’re better, because we’re playing good competition everyday in practice.”
Saturday’s win was Utah State’s first three-game sweep at home this season. The win was even bigger with the Aggies seeing the game as a must win.
“There are certain teams we know we have to beat to be where we want to be in conference, and this is one of those teams we knew we had to beat,” Matheson said. “There wasn’t pressure, but we knew we had to beat them.”
Fuller said, “To get a 3-0 win against anybody in our conference, and against a good team like Northridge is a good win. I don’t care how we do it, how much we come back.”