Volleyball suffers tough losses to familiar foes
The USU men’s volleyball team made a 3-4 showing at their regional competition in Colorado Springs, Colo. on March 9 and 10.
“The first team we played in Colorado was the University of Arizona’s A team,” team Vice President Wyatt Lamborn said. “They’re just hard. They get paid to play, so they probably practice all the time. We played well against them. We went 2-2 the first day and 1-2 the second. We didn’t do too bad.”
Salt Lake Community College made their way to the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum on Wednesday night, boasting a few wins over USU on the season. USU started off strong, keeping up with SLCC throughout the match. After losing the first game, the Aggies remained poised to win but couldn’t pull off a defeat in the second game.
USU could have found their groove a bit more as a team, Nate Copier said. Game No. 3 began with a scoring spike by Ryan Beckstrom and was followed up by the ball hit out of bounds by SLCC to give the Aggies their second point.
“We played well a times,” Lamborn said. “Our passing was a little bit off. We connected at times really well, but we’ve had the same problem all year long of maintaining consistency.”
The team didn’t play up to their potential, which caused frustration among the players, Copier said. But there is promise for next year since the season is quickly coming to a close, he said.
Scoring was back and forth throughout the third game, and the lead changed often. USU stayed quick on their feet to tie the score at 15, but didn’t keep it for long as SLCC came in with a knock-down inside the Aggie line to capture the win at 25.
“I was expecting a better game,” Lamborn said. “We’ve played Salt Lake Community College a lot of times. I knew it was going to be a really good match-up. It was going to be a fun game, and it was.”
Match play concluded with a 3-0 win by SLCC, but following the game both teams stayed on to hold a scrimmage match. The crowd remained involved all night, and things are always more fun when the crowd is big and loud, Lamborn said. When it comes to fans, the more the merrier, he said.
USU will travel to Boise State University on March 24 to face off against both Boise State and the University of Idaho.
-eawads@cc.usu.edu