Utah State spikers looking to get on winning streak starting with Cal Poly
The Utah State women’s volleyball team has a specific goal it is shooting for in the second half of Big West Conference play – to finish 7-2.
But in order to do that, the Aggies must win the remaining league games starting Thursday as they take on Cal Poly.
USU also hosts league-leading UC Santa Barbara Saturday. Both matches are scheduled for 7 p.m.
“We’ve talked about how we have to go 7-2 to be in the running for the NCAA Tournament,” said middle blocker Erin Cartwright. “We could still do that … hopefully we can get on a winning streak.”
Cartwright said the Aggies have an advantage against UCSB because they went to five games in the Oct. 10 meeting, with the Gauchos eventually coming out on top.
She said competing against them at home should give them an edge.
Outside hitter Beth Hodge, who saw considerable action this weekend after being out for a few matches with an injured rotator cuff, said she thinks the remainder of the home lineup – including this series and the final series Nov. 20 and 21 against Pacific and Cal State Northridge, respectively – favors USU.
“We’re definitely trying to win the rest of them to put us in a position to get in to the tournament,” she said.
Aggie Head Coach Burt Fuller said focusing on themselves is all the team can do right now.
And taking full advantage of the home games will definitely be a factor.
“We don’t know how many teams are going to go out of our conference [to the tournament],” he said. “We don’t know how everyone else is going to finish up. All we can do is try to be as good as we can be at home.”
He said the team will look at each match individually, but it needs to finish with a winning record overall.
Utah State is currently 19-9 overall and 6-6 in the Big West.
The Aggies knocked off Cal Poly 3-0 (32-30, 30-27, 30-24) earlier in the season on the road.
USU has won four of the last seven meetings against the Mustangs.
“Cal Poly is a good team,” Fuller said. “They do some things real well as far as blocking. They had us down real fast down there, but we were able to come back and score.”
The Mustangs are coming off a pair of losses to Pacific and Cal State Northridge. Sophomore outside hitter Vanessa Gilliam leads the team hitting .281.
CP as a team is hitting .201 on the year and its opponents are hitting .192.
In order to pick up a victory, the Aggies need to continue to come out of the gates strong. Cartwright said the team played great in its win over UC Irvine, but struggled against Long Beach.
“I think that if we would have came out against Long Beach like we did in Irvine we really would have beat them,” she said. “We can’t be disappointed. We got one of them.”
Aside from finishing up conference play, Utah State has a non-league match against BYU Nov. 25 in Provo.
-juag@cc.usu.edu