Spikers squeak by with victory
Just when the Utah State women’s volleyball team thought it was healthy again, another player sat on the bench in street clothes.
Outside hitter Beth Hodge will remain on the sidelines for at least the next week with a rotator cuff strain, said Aggie Head Coach Burt Fuller.
He said Hodge injured it during the game last Friday against UC Santa Barbara. She played a game and a half against Cal Poly the following night, but came out and has not seen action since.
The Aggies knew they were going to be without their strong left-side hitter and used the week leading up to Thursday night’s contest against Cal State Fullerton to prepare. Their efforts were barely enough, though, as USU squeaked by the Titans in five games (30-25, 23-30, 31-33, 30-24, 15-12).
“If we can reshuffle [the lineup] and win, then we are OK,” Fuller said. “We just didn’t get production out of either of our left-side hitters.”
Erin Graybill finished with only four kills and a .067 hitting percentage and Zuzana Cernianska, who saw action in her third game back since being out with an elbow injury, had 15 kills and a -.020 hitting percentage.
Fuller said the team was struggling to find consistency in its setting, especially on the left side.
“Zuzana came out last weekend after not playing for two weeks and had tremendous numbers,” Fuller said. “She had a bad match [against Fullerton]. That is going to happen. We had two or three other kids who picked up the slack.”
Including opposite side hitter Mari Ruddick. The freshman finished with a career-high 24 kills and 13 digs.
After the Aggies (4-4 in Big West Conference play and 7-11 overall) switched sides during the fifth game, Ruddick had three straight kills and then pulled the team ahead 14-12 with a kill.
The game-winner came on a hitting error by Titan Jaclyn Owen, who hit the antenna on the left side.
Ruddick said she was feeling comfortable in her kills and setter Andrea Delsigne noticed and started giving her the ball more.
But during the second and third games nothing was going right for Utah State. The players were having numerous hitting errors and even allowed three consecutive service aces for CSF.
The Aggies held a 29-25 advantage in the third game, and then gave up five straight points.
Kills by Ruddick and Delsigne kept the team in the game, but hitting errors eventually gave Cal State Fullerton the 33-31 victory.
Middle blocker Erin Cartwright said she was so mad after that game it gave her the motivation to come out for the next two.
“We were not going to lose again,” Cartwright said. “We were just so furious.”
Coming into the contest, Cal State Fullerton was tied for last place in the Big West Conference with Idaho with a 1-6 league record. The Titans’ only win this season came against UC Riverside in five games.
The Aggies host the Highlanders Saturday at 7 p.m.
UC Riverside (2-5, 7-11) is currently ranked 18th in the country with 18.19 digs per game and have recorded over 100 digs on three occasions this season.
Lauren Goins and Melanie Meister led the Titans with 20 and 15 kills, respectively.
“I think we’ve learned a lesson,” Cartwright said. “You can’t overlook teams that you think you are going to go out and thump. You can’t overlook anyone because everyone is good in our conference. We learned that [against CSF] for sure.”
Said Fuller, “We were trying to tell this group for a week that watching Fullerton on tape and seeing their scores and who they were playing, it’s not a bad team. They had a couple of bad breaks to be where they are in the league. They can string points together, though, and be pretty good.”
The Aggies did come out with 24 more digs than the Titans (103 to 79). It was the first time since 1989 against Nevada that USU had recorded more than 100 digs.
Cartwright recorded a career-high 33 kills and 25 digs. Taubi Neves and Delsigne added 20 and 15 digs, respectively.
-juag@cc.usu.edu