Spikers drop another game on the road to New Mexico State
If students are interested in a highlight from the USU women’s volleyball match Saturday night in Las Cruces, N.M., they’ll be hard pressed to find one. The No. 23 New Mexico State Aggies trounced over USU in three games (30-14, 30-19, 30-26) in front of 1,479 fans at the Las Cruces High School gymnasium.
Perhaps the sole highlight from the visiting Aggies’ side came from junior outside hitter Amanda Nielson.
Nielson recorded 11 kills and nine digs in the match, which lasted only 80 minutes.
“She didn’t hit real well,” USU Head Coach Grayson DuBose said by telephone Saturday night from a hotel in Las Cruces, “but she didn’t make a lot of errors. That’s pretty much about it on the positive side. It’s hard to pick. We didn’t control the ball well. There’s not a whole lot of highlights.”
USU dropped to 12-14 on the season, including a 5-7 mark in Western Athletic Conference play.
NMSU on the other hand is a red-hot 26-1 overall and 9-1 in the WAC. They defeated USU in the Spectrum in three games Sept. 28.
Besides Nielson, outside hitter Beth Hodge and middle blocker Melissa Larson each tallied five kills.
On the match, USU had a .017 attacking percentage compared to a .274 percentage by NMSU.
One other positive for USU, DuBose said, was that his team held NMSU’s Amber Simpson (the team’s best hitter) to a .059 attacking percentage.
“They were good,” DuBose said of the southern Aggies. “They’re a more experienced team and it was kind of a challenging match for us. We were a little intimidated at the start.”
USU competed much better in Game 3 than in the first two.
The visiting Aggies hit .119 in the game and only lost by four points.
“We were hitting pretty well for a while, but made a few errors in the end,” DuBose said of Game 3.
The home Aggies were led by Anna Callis, who tallied 14 blocks and a match-high .875 attacking percentage.
They also had a stellar output from Kim Oguh, who collected 11 kills and a .556 hitting percentage.
Things don’t get any easier for USU.
The 15th-ranked Rainbow Wahine of Hawaii come to the Spectrum this Saturday. The Wahine already downed USU once this season in Honolulu in three games.