Ags blanked by ranked NMSU Aggies
The team that was supposed to be better was all that and more Thursday night in the Spectrum.
The 22nd-ranked New Mexico State Aggies (17-0, 3-0 in WAC play) dominated the USU women’s volleyball team 3-0 (30-21, 30-28, 30-14), a blanking that left the home side with its heads down, searching for answers to what went wrong.
“We just didn’t show up,” USU outside hitter Beth Hodge said. “That’s pretty much my thoughts. It just wasn’t our night.”
Aside from Games 1 and 3 (in which NMSU out-hit USU convincingly), Game 2, in retrospect, should have gone to USU (9-8, 2-1).
At least according to the stat sheet.
In Game 2, USU out-hit the southern Aggies .244 to .075. USU also had a 16-12 advantage on kills. USU even led by as many as three points midway through the game.
But the number that stands out like a sore thumb for the USU coaching staff and players were the six service errors the home squad tallied in Game 2 alone.
Yup, a six-point gift for NMSU.
“That’s probably the worst part,” Hodge said. “We beat them in everything and we still lose the game, except for the important numbers. Stupid errors at the wrong time is probably what it was. That’s the game. You can win every statistical point, but if you don’t win the point category, you’re screwed.”
USU also tallied nine attacking errors in Game 2, which also were an aid to NMSU catching up and winning the game.
“Every time we would we would make an error somehow to end the run,” Aggie Head Coach Grayson DuBose said. “[NMSU has] been in those situations more than we have. Maybe I need to do a better job creating that environment in practice.”
Service errors have been a trouble spot for USU in recent games.
In the past three contests, USU has recorded 38 of them, 19 of which have come from outside hitter Amanda Nielson.
Nielson, ironically, has also led her team in kills in two of the past three games, including 11 against NMSU to go along with six digs.
“We talk about it a lot [in practice],” DuBose said.”Maybe that’s one of the problems is that we talk about it so much that it’s all they can think about. It’s like when you walk into a room with a pink elephant and you say don’t look at that pink elephant. It’s kind of hard not to look at that pink elephant. We talk about missing a bunch of serves, we talk about ball control, and then (in the game) we miss.”
In Game 3, NMSU wasn’t giving USU anything.
The southern Aggies held the home Aggies to a .100 attacking percentage, collecting 27 digs on USU attempts to put a point on the board.
NMSU grabbed a 9-3 lead early on, stretching it to as many as 16 before sealing the victory.
Despite two timeouts called by DuBose to try and find a spark in his team, USU never got into the game.
“I don’t want to use inexperience as a crutch, but that’s an experienced team that we’re playing,” DuBose said. “They don’t make [the errors that we do] under stress. Much, much better team. Obviously. They are 17-0 for a reason. Much more polished.”
NMSU junior Kim Oguh, an AVCA All-American last year, tallied 10 kills and a.533 attacking percentage.
Hodge collected nine kills and four digs for USU and hit .304 on the night.
The Louisiana Tech Bulldogs come to the Spectrum Saturday for a 7 p.m. match-up with USU.
“It shows a lot of character (to bounce back),” Hodge said. “We’ve got to bounce back. We’ve got to win the game on Saturday. We’re supposed to win at home and split on the road. We might as well split at home. We’ve got to come back and take [Louisiana Tech].”
Notes: NMSU is ranked in the Top 25 for the first time in school history. With NMSU and Hawai’i (No. 15) in the Top 25, it is the first time since 2001 that the WAC has had two schools ranked at the same time…
-sbhislop@cc.usu.edu