Volleyball club at big meet at University of Utah

Landon Olson

This weekend the USU men’s volleyball club will travel to the University of Utah for one of its biggest tournaments of the year.

This is the team’s first conference tournament of the year. Sixteen teams from Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington and Utah will be there. Teams from the North and East regions of the Mountain West Volleyball Conference are required to attend the conference tournament.

After previous tournaments, Utah State is ninth in the rankings for teams in Division 2. Teams are placed in divisions based on their experience and preference.

“This will be real big for us,” said coach Greg Jorgenson.

USU will play Division 2 schools like No. 4 Washington State University and No. 13 University of Utah. Additionally, USU will have to compete against high-ranked Division 1 teams like rival Utah Valley State College and the University of Colorado.

The tournament will consist of pool play today and tomorrow. Following pool play today, teams will play in a single elimination format.

The team should do well, as long as no one loses his focus in the middle of a match, Jorgenson said.

The team has been doing better this year, though it hasn’t played for three weeks. One player had minor surgery in the off- time, but is playing again, Jorgenson said.

Next Friday, both the A and B teams will travel to play a match at Weber State – one of the few single matches USU will play. Jorgenson said the team only plays about five single matches all year, and most of the time they just play in tournaments.

The next tournament for the Aggies will be a conference tournament in Tucson, Ariz., in two weeks. The Tucson tournament will include teams from the North and South regions.