Aggies lose final home game of season
In an underwhelming performance, the Utah State volleyball team lost its final home game of the season 3-1 to the Air Force Academy on Saturday.
After losing the first two sets, USU won a tightly contested third set to prolong the match. The visitors withstood the Aggie comeback, though, opening up a 22-14 lead en route to a 25-19 victory in the decisive final game.
“Those guys aren’t going to quit,” said head coach Grayson DuBose, referring to the Falcons. “They throw their bodies on grenades for a living… Volleyball’s not going to scare them.”
The Falcons dominated USU for most of the match, hitting .245 with 55 kills and a sideout percentage over 65 percent. Air Force added 16 team blocks, compared to only six for the Aggies.
“Their game plan was better than ours,” DuBose said. “Their outside hitters were better than ours. Everything they did tonight was better than ours. That’s disappointing in our own gym.”
The loss dropped USU to 6-25 on the season and 2-15 in Mountain West play.
In many ways, the performance against Air Force was a microcosm of the season as a whole, DuBose said.
“We can’t sustain good play for a long enough period of time,” he said. “We’re up and then we have three hitting errors or we miss a dig and then we have two hitting errors.”
Holding a 4-3 lead in the fourth set, the Aggies allowed the visitors to go on a 6-0 run that included five errors by Utah State. The match was epitomized by an Air Force service ace during that run. A miscommunication between sophomore outside Rachel Gale and freshman outside Simone Gibeau resulted in the ball glancing off Gibeau’s arm for a Falcon point without either player making an attempt to return it.
“I think we’re good volleyball players,” DuBose said, “but we sure don’t act like it.”
A lack of assertiveness has plagued the Aggies all season long. They showed their ability with a 25-23 win in the third set that featured 15 ties and five lead changes, but allowed the run in the final set that essentially sealed the win for Air Force.
USU also allowed a set-clinching 4-1 run after a kill by freshman middle blocker Lauren O’Brien tied the first game 21-21.
“We’re so afraid to fail that we fail because we don’t work hard enough,” DuBose said.
Utah State hit a match-high .234 with 17 kills in the third set, but followed it up with only nine kills and seven errors in the final set. The Falcons, on the other hand, hit .342 with 15 kills and only two errors in the critical fourth game.
Gale led the Aggies with 14 kills and a .200 attacking percentage in the match. Sophomore opposite side hitter Kayla DeCoursey added 12 kills while hitting .194. Gibeau came off the bench to score eight kills with a .227 percentage.
USU will play the final game of the season on Tuesday against Boise State.
— thomas.sorenson@aggiemail.usu.edu
Twitter: @tomcat340