Utah State Volleyball falls to Utah in straight sets

Utah State Volleyball fell 3-0 to in-state rival Utah on Friday night in the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum. The game was the team’s annual Spectrum Magic game, which drew an energized crowd of 3,499.

“What a cool environment. We were talking about that in one of the timeouts of how lucky we are to be able to have an atmosphere like that,” head coach Keith Smith said. “There’s very few people in the country that have the support like that. Hurd’s awesome. Logan Community is awesome.”

The Aggies’ loss takes them to 0-7 on the season as they continue a non-conference slate packed with top-tier opponents.

“The fact that this has happened the last two years helps. The buy-in is good, we’ve been focusing on the process,” Smith said. “We talk about life of its own, just focusing on one point at a time and like moving on, not letting bad play leak into the next one. And I think we did really, really well there, and again, I think we’re playing better volleyball every single match.”

The Aggies got off to a slow start again against the Utes, falling behind 10-5 to start the match. After USU closed the gap to 12-9, Utah pushed its lead to 20-12 before closing the first set 25-17.

Utah State started the second set strong, keeping pace with the Utes through the opening points. The teams found themselves knotted at 14 before the Utes ripped off a 5-0 run to take a commanding lead. The Aggies got a couple points back but ultimately dropped the second set 25-19.

The Aggies have been competitive in recent matches but have given up runs at crucial times that have put sets out of reach.

“We’re really close. We just need to end those runs a little sooner,” Smith said. “We’ve got to get a little bit better at siding out and ending those runs when they have really good servers at the line, but I think we’re close. This is progress.”

The third set started similarly for Utah State, as they led the set from the jump until Utah tied it at 14. The teams traded points until it was tied at 22, before several timely kills, two coming from former Aggie Loryn Helgesen, closed the third set and the match 25-23.

The Utes controlled the block throughout the match, hitting .324 while holding Utah State to just a .104 hitting percentage.

“Statistically, they’ve been the best passing team, like one of the best 10 passing teams in the country. So, when you do that, you can hit from all over,” Smith said. “They just have really, really good arms, and they’re probably the most balanced team we played all year, including even Kentucky. So that just makes it really, really difficult.”

The Aggies offense has sputtered in the early season, though it has trended in the positive direction as matches go on. USU had a -.125 hitting percentage in the first set, before bouncing back by hitting .256 in the second set and .154 in the third.

“We put a little bit of an emphasis on increasing our offense to try to get to at least over .200, and then sets two and three we got there. The reality is, I think the style of volleyball we want to play is a little bit uglier and not going to just be going and crushing balls against these great teams — it’s scrapping, fighting,” Smith said. “Now we just clean up a few things, a few more kills here and there, and now we’re in set four playing against them.”

Following their string of top 50 opponents, the Aggies will next take on Weber State on Tuesday in Ogden before returning home for Utah Valley on Thursday.

“It’ll kind of be a good test to see: Are we getting better? Are we able to handle it?” Smith said. “Can we keep the progress going and play even better than we did against Utah? Which means we got to finish some sets and come away with some wins.”