USU volleyball team beats Texas State, solidify WAC title
Senior Night lived up to its billing for the Utah State women’s volleyball team as the Aggies capped their WAC-Championship season with a sweep of Texas State on Wednesday at the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum to send Shay Sorensen, Josselyn White and Kassi Hargrove out with a win.
“It’s always nice to win on Senior Night,” said USU head coach Grayson DuBose. “You always want to send those guys out with a good feeling. Those three have accomplished a lot while they’ve been here at Utah State. That’s their 71st win, I figured out. I think that’s pretty impressive.”
Playing in front of a sizeable crowd on Senior Night, Sorensen wasted little time giving the Aggies the lead and writing herself in the school record books. With her first swing of the night, the senior from Ogden, Utah recorded her 863rd career kill to move into a tie for 10th place all-time at USU.
But it was fellow-senior White who stole the spotlight early on, tallying five kills as the Aggies cruised to a 25-17 first-set win. Sophomore Rachel Orr also recorded five kills, and Sorensen finished the way she started it, putting down her third kill and moving into sole possession of 10th place all-time.
“It gives me something to look back on when I’m old,” Sorensen said. “It just means that I’ve been here a long time and that I’ve been able to play and get some kills. It’s cool.”
Sorensen finished the night tied for ninth place all-time after finishing with 10 kills, and the Aggies went up two sets to none with a strong finish for the second-consecutive set.
Trailing by three midway through the second set, sophomore libero Ashlan Rogers reeled off three service aces and nearly had a fourth as part of a 4-0 run to give the Aggies a 17-16 lead. USU finished the set with a 16-5 run.
“We knew it was going to be an emotional night,” White said. “We knew we needed to come out and feed off of those emotions and use them for positive things. We were able to do that. We did a good job of coming together and not paying attention to the score. We used what got us the lead in the first place and got the lead back.”
It was the 16th time this season USU won the first two sets, and the Aggies improved to 15-1 in those matches after an action-packed third set.
Emotions flared early in the set after a series of events sparked by a disputed call led to a red card for Texas State’s head coach. The turn of events put the Aggies up 3-2 instead of down, and the they capitalized with a 4-0 run for a 6-2 lead they never relinquished.
“I was nervous coming in because I get super emotional, so I was like ‘I’m going to be crying and they’re going to be serving and it’s just going to be a disaster,'” White said. “So it feels good to be able to co
me together. We didn’t just win, but we played well as a team. It felt right, it felt good.”
All three seniors saw significant playing time and played a major role in the outcome. After all was said and done, the trio of Sorensen, White and Hargrove had the opportunity to light the “A” atop the Old Main tower blue.
“That was fun, it was cool,” Hargrove said. “It’s exciting that we won obviously or it probably would have been a different story. It was bittersweet. It was exciting that the team was able to get up so I could go in and set.”
With the win, Utah State concluded the regular season at 20-8 overall, including a 15-3 mark in conference play.
The top-seeded Aggies will begin postseason play against the No. 8 seed in the WAC Tournament, either Seattle or UT-Arlington, after a first-round bye on Monday, Nov. 19 at 6:30 p.m.
“It was definitely an emotional roller coaster,” Sorensen said. “It’s sad because it’s our last game in the Spectrum, but we have to stay focused because we have the tournament coming up and we want to go and win that. So we’re not getting too crazy emotional yet.”
– curtis.lundstrom@aggiemail.usu.edu
Twitter: @CurtisLundstrom