Aggies rolling, win sixth straight
Make it six wins in a row.
The Aggies downed the University of Utah, breaking a three-match losing streak to the Utes with a 3-1 victory in the Spectrum Tuesday night.
“It was great, I’m going to cry, I wanted that game so bad,” senior opposite side hitter Amanda Nielson said. “It’s a huge rivalry between us for a lot of reasons.”
This is the first time seniors Nielson and outside hitter Monarisa Ale have beaten Utah in their USU careers.
Instead of tears of joy, early on in the match it looked like a different kind of tear might be running down the cheeks of Utah State players after the match. The Aggies came out flat in Game 1 and got down by as many as eight points.
“You always get emotional in in-state rivalry, especially if it’s Utah, and I think we were all over the place,” Nielson said. “We just kind were a little bit antsy and we just needed to calm down.”
The emotions of the rivalry led the Aggies to give the Utes 16 points on nine hitting errors, one blocking error and six service errors.
Even with all the errors, Utah State was still able to crawl it’s way back into the game, getting within three before a rash of service errors gave Utah the game at 30-25.
“One of the things we always talk about is being good over time and being steady,” USU Head Coach Grayson DuBose said. “In these in-state rivalries, there tends to be a ton of emotion. If you go blow it all in the first game, you don’t have anything left … We didn’t want to be too high or too low, we just wanted to stay steady.”
That’s exactly what USU did the rest of the match-surely, steadily win points and games.
In Game 2, the tables were turned, with a completely different Aggie team and a completely different result.
The Aggies were on a tear, hitting an impressive .459 with 22 kills. They used their hot hitting to get up by as many as nine points. Utah closed the gap a little, but with Nielson kills accounting for five of the last eight points, the Aggies took Game 2 30-23.
Then came the burr for USU all season-Game 3. Things were different Tuesday night.
“Whatever you have to do to be ready, go be ready, and we kind of came out and answered the bell a little bit,” DuBose said of Game 3.
“After the second game we went into our room, the one thing (DuBose) said is, ‘Anything that you can do to win this third game, I’ll be happy,'” freshman setter Chelsea Fowles said. “So I think we just focused everything on making sure we took that third game.”
Unlike recent Game 3 performances against Weber State, Utah Valley and Fresno State, the Aggies were able to come out strong in the third game. They continued their hot hitting, racking up another 21 kills with a .381 average.
But Game 3 wasn’t a runaway for USU. Utah also hit over .300 at .333, and fought hard in a game that saw 13 ties and five lead changes. Neither team was able to make any real gains, and it turned into a side-out fest. Strong hitting by Nielson, Ale and junior outside hitter Melissa Osterloh pulled the Aggies to a 30-27 win.
“It’s so frustrating going into the third game after we’ve won some and not being able to pull it out, but being able to push through that was really good,” Fowles said.
With the first Game 3 win in over a week under its belt, Utah State looked to continue bucking trends.
In 2007, the Aggies hadn’t won a match after losing the first game-until Tuesday night.
A close, hard-fought Game 4, that very much resembled Game 3, gave USU the victory over in-state rival Utah and pushed their season-best winning streak to six matches.
Nielson again led the Aggies with 25 kills while hitting .263. Ale recorded a career-high 17 kills and a .353 hitting average. And Osterloh finished with 13 kills and 10 digs for her 11th double-double of the year. Middle blocker Danielle Taylor also added nine kills and a .571 hitting average.
It’s not surprising to see kill numbers like that from the main cogs in the Aggie offense. But it is a surprise to see Fowles record a career-high three kills against the Utes. All of them came on quick dumps over the net to fool Utah’s defense.
“I used to do that in high school a lot, and I don’t know, I saw the open court and took it,” she said.
She also added 61 assists-two short of tying her season high-and a big solo block that gave the Aggies game point in the fourth game.
“(Fowles) always sets well and when she does other things like dig and block, it’s great,” Nielson said.
DuBose gives some of the credit for performances like Fowles’ to the players on the USU bench.
“I can’t say enough about our team, in general,” he said. “Those who don’t get in every single match, they do a wonderful job of preparing our starters to be successful … It’s kind of cool, we have this nice team dynamic going.”
Utah State (15-10, 9-4 in the Western Athletic Conference) looks to keep things going when they travel to Orem Thursday to take on Utah Valley at 7 p.m.
The in-state match with the Wolverines will be the Aggies’ last nonconference match of the season. They finish with games against Idaho (Nov. 5) and Hawaii (Nov. 11) on the road, and are home against Nevada for senior night Nov. 8 at 7 p.m.
-da.bake@aggiemail.usu.edu