Volleyball loses to Idaho State in five sets
What started out as an encouraging and pleasant night for the Utah State Women’s Volleyball team ended in painful agony. After racing to a 2-0 lead, the Aggies collapsed and dropped a heart breaker to the Idaho State Bengals in five sets.
Junior outside hitter Shay Sorenson had a career night for the Aggies despite the loss. She tied her personal best at 16 kills to finish the night with a hitting percentage of .333. When asked about her outstanding performance amid the loss, Sorenson said that it wasn’t enough to get the win.
Luckily for Sorenson the Aggies will get another chance soon. They play game two of the Utah State Invitational against Syracuse at 7 p.m., Friday, Sept. 2.
Head coach Grayson Dubose said the Bengals played a lot tougher than his Aggies.
“They showed a lot more guts and heart than we did and that’s really disappointing,” Dubose said. “You have to win three games, and when you lose the last three games, it doesn’t help a ton.”
The Aggies had Idaho State down to their last breath, leading 19-15 in the third set but weren’t able to put the final nail in the coffin.
Led by senior middle blocker Vanessa Muir, the Bengals turned the tide and managed to pull off the improbable victory. After coming up with a couple of key kills during a pivotal stretch of the third set, the Bengals found some momentum and after a couple of errors by Utah State’s frontline, the Aggies found themselves down a point.
Junior outside hitter Josselyn White explained what brought about the collapse causing USU to drop the set 26-24.
“We were up by a lot and then they went on a run and we just panicked and our passing broke down and our hitting, defense and blocking — it just all went downhill from there. We didn’t know how to rebound.” Having lost all of the momentum and dropping the third set, the Aggies self-destructed and dropped the fourth set, 25-18. They could do little right, and the Bengals were doing little wrong. The Aggies seemed to get back on track to start the fifth set, quickly jumping out to a lead. The bad news for USU was Idaho State had the answers and closed the gap. The nail-biting fifth set went back and forth, but the Aggies ran out of gas at the end, falling 12-15 to end the match.
The Aggies have high hopes for this season despite having lost some of their senior impact players from last season.
“We’re just trying to figure some stuff out,” Sorenson said. “I think that we have enough experience coming back that we should be better than what we’re doing.”
DuBose said the team let Idaho State dictate the game.
“They just knocked us in the mouth and we didn’t respond,” Dubose said. “We just stopped doing the things we were doing for the first two games, which is discouraging.”
Despite the loss, White said there were high points.
“I think we saw glimpses of what we can be,” White said. “Those first two games we played pretty well. The score might have been closer than the match indicated. I think we had the upper hand most of the time. It will be hard to find positives, but I guess we can if we look hard enough.”
It was a sour way to end a match that began so well for the Aggies.
“That’s the past,” White said. “It already happened. We’ve got to look forward to tomorrow and come out stronger and play with more heart and passion. I think things will go better for us.”
The Aggies host Syracuse at 7 p.m. in The Spectrum Sept. 3.
— curtis.lundstrom@aggiemail.usu.edu