Volleyball drops one to Northridge
It was a rough night for Utah State’s women’s volleyball team, losing in four games to the Cal State Northridge Matadors and falling to 1-5 for the season.
The Aggies have come off with a win in five of the last six matches against CSN, winning all three games played in Logan.
USU was led by lone senior Kindy Peterson, who ended the night with 19 kills, no errors and 14 digs.
“Kindy Peterson had an outstanding match tonight,” said Utah State Head Coach Burt Fuller, “a tremendous night. We didn’t give her enough balls early enough to let her get going. We might have stayed a little too balanced.”
Zuzana Cernianska added to the offense with 14 kills and 35 assists. Freshman Carolyn Forbush had 12 kills. Kelsi Thoman led all players with 17 digs.
“Zuzana was OK, but [had] a number of errors at inopportune times, [but] not all her fault,” Fuller said. “Carolyn struggled early, [but] she came back. Carolyn is somebody I think is going to be a real solid player.”
He added that the team has a lot of young players, one thing that was tough playing a team with seven seniors.
Despite the strong game from Peterson and others, Utah State lost the game through unforced errors, ending the night with 26, essentially giving the Matadors 26 free points.
“We’re not usually like that,” Peterson said. “It was kind of an off night, everybody has off nights, and I think we just had one. I think serving was our killer though.”
“We have young setters,” Fuller said, “we need to continue to work on them and get them to feel where the hot hitters are.”
However, Fuller also said the Ags passed much better against CSN than they have in their four previous matches.
USU came out flat in the first game, never seeing the lead in the entire game, making unforced errors nearly every time the ball was on their side of the net. The game ended 30-23, and the start of the second game wasn’t much better.
However, the Ags tied it at five, stayed with the Matadors and pulled out their only win, defeating CSN 30-27.
Games three and four were filled with errors. Towards the end of the third game the Ags were down 29-22, but they started to comeback. Led by Cernianska, the Ags rattled off four quick points but were unable to stay in control and fell 30-26.
“We’d get going then we would miss a serve,” Peterson said. “I think one thing we need to do is communicate a lot more.”
“It was a real close match,” Fuller said. “I just thought that there were stretches after 20 [points] that we were not real sharp on, and maybe that’s just maturity.”
Despite Peterson coming out strong, Northridge won game four 30-27 behind senior Jen Ryan who ended the game with 23 kills.
Heather Fobian and Kelly Zabielski added 11 kills each for CSN.
“Congratulations to Northridge,” Fuller said. “They had a couple kids that gave some really solid performance.
“It was kind of our three kids against their three kids.”
Saturday, USU has another home game against Pacific (3-2) at 2 p.m.
Last year, the Aggies won against the Tigers in four games.
“Saturday is big,” Peterson said. “We’ve got to come in ready to play and play hard the whole time. We can’t let up at all.”
-aedmunds@cc.usu.edu