Utah State spikers finish empty-handed
In its first extended Big West Conference road trip of the season, the Utah State University women’s volleyball team came away empty-handed.
The Aggies (6-8, 1-4 in Big West play) were swept by the University of California Santa Barbara 30-24, 30-21, 30-22 Friday night, followed by a 30-21, 33-31, 30-23 defeat to Cal Poly Saturday.
Despite the daunting task of playing matches on back-to-back nights, USU Head Coach Burt Fuller said fatigue was not a factor. However, inconsistent play against two of the upper echelon teams in the Big West was, he said.
“We felt rested. We had time to prepare,” he said. “We had some good individual performances, but collectively we need to play better.”
When the Aggies took the court against No. 7 ranked UCSB, they faced a red-hot Gaucho team which had defeated then No. 6 Long Beach State University on the road a week earlier. In that match, UC Santa Barbara snapped LBSU’s 30-match home winning streak.
Although USU gave UCSB a scare in the first game, the Gauchos remained unbeaten on the season. UCSB is one of four unbeaten teams in the country.
For the match, the Gauchos out hit the Aggies .299 to .125, with three players reaching double figures in kills to just one for USU. However, it was UCSB’s defensive play that was a bigger difference maker, Fuller said.
While both teams finished with nine team blocks, the Gauchos enjoyed a 61-41 advantage on digs – far too many when playing a high-caliber team like UCSB.
“It just gives them a lot of opportunities to score,” he said. “You can’t afford to give a team like Santa Barbara as many opportunities as we did.”
Courtney Guerra (12 kills), Danielle Bauer (11 kills) and Francina Edmonds (10 kills) paced the Gaucho offense, while Guerra led the UCSB defense with a match-high 15 digs.
For the Aggies, middle blocker Erin Cartwright, who Fuller said had “two pretty good performances” over the weekend, finished with 12 putaways and a match-high five block assists.
Freshman Jenna Jordan hit a match-high .463, while setter Andrea Delsigne tallied a career-high four service aces.
A solid performance by Cartwright (17 kills and a .400 hitting percentage) wasn’t enough for the Aggies Saturday in San Luis Obispo, Calif. as Cal Poly (5-9, 4-2) improved to 4-1 in its last five matches.
“We didn’t play well [against Cal Poly],” Fuller said. “We didn’t attack the ball very well.”
Unfortunately for the Aggies, the Mustangs did.
Led by Jessica Diepersloot (13 kills and a match-high .591 hitting percentage), Cal Poly hit a sweltering .424 in game one and .484 in the third game as the Mustangs hit .360 for the match.
The top blocking team in the BWC a year ago, Cal Poly enjoyed an 11-3 advantage in team blocks, and helped force USU into committing 28 attack errors for the match.
Nevertheless, the Aggies were two points away from knotting the match up at 1-1 in the second game. Clinging to a 32-31 advantage, Diepersloot and Nicole Bertotti combined to block an Aggie attack, giving the Mustangs a 2-0 match lead.
Game three belonged to the Mustangs as the Aggies continued to struggle with consistency, Fuller said.
“The way we came out in the third game is not a testament of the way the team can play,” he said.
For the Aggies, Tereza and Zuzana Cernianska also finished with double digits in kills with 11 and 10, respectively. Zuzana recorded a triple-double with 10 kills, 21 assists and 10 digs.
USU will return to action Tuesday when it hosts BYU at 6 p.m. in the Spectrum.
-jasonwturner@cc.usu.edu