Volleyball sweeps California road trip
Playing in its first Big West Conference road trip of the season, the Utah State University women’s volleyball team got off on the right foot, defeating the University of California-Riverside on Friday and California State University at Fullerton on Saturday. “I think it was a good trip for us,” Head Coach Burt Fuller said. With the victories, the Aggies improved to 7-4 on the season, 4-1 in league play.
USU 3, UC-Riverside 0 Backed by a complete team effort, USU swept UC-Riverside 3-0 (30-18, 30-19, 32-30) Friday night in Riverside, Calif. The Aggies enjoyed strong performances on both the offensive and defensive side of the net, hitting .323 for the match while holding the Highlanders to a paltry .122 hitting percentage. Seniors Lisa Borom and Michelle Matheson continued their hot play, with Matheson hitting a whopping .643 and Borom .481 with a match-high 17 kills. Games one and two belonged to the Aggies as they hit .342 in the first game and .467 in the second. “I thought we went down to Riverside and had a real good start to the match,” Fuller said. In addition to the offensive, USU stymied the Riverside attack, holding the Highlanders (8-7, 1-5 in the Big West) to an atrocious .047 and .029 hitting percentage in games one and two. Unlike the first two games, game three was a dogfight. Despite being out-hit .297-.226 in the third game, the Aggies were able to close the match out on consecutive kills by Borom and Matheson after the Highlanders knotted the score at 30-30. Sophomore Erin Cartwright paced the Aggies defensively with a match-high 12 digs. USU also out-blocked the Highlanders by a count of 9-6.
USU 3, Fullerton 1 Fresh off of its victory over UC-Riverside, USU notched its third straight victory with a 3-1 defeat (30-25, 29-31, 30-24, 30-22) of Cal State-Fullerton on Saturday. With the score knotted at 1-1, the Aggies turned up their defensive intensity a notch, holding the Titans to hitting percentages of .073 and .104 in the third and fourth games to earn their third straight victory. USU showed its defensive balance as two players finished with nine digs and three players with eight. The Aggies were also dominant on the blocks with middle blocker Michelle Matheson out-blocking the entire Titan team 7-4. “I think [Michelle] started to take away some of the things they wanted to do [offensively],” Fuller said. Offensively, the Aggies were led by red-hot Lisa Borom. Borom pasted the Titans with a career-high 28 kills and a hitting percentage of .373. “Against Fullerton, Lisa had a great match,” Fuller said. “Lisa seemed to finish the games off strong for us.” As a team, the Aggies out-hit the Titans .279-.173, behind the strength of 59 assists by senior setter Chelsi Neves. Katie Crawford and Be Holcombe led the Fullerton attack with 20 and 15 kills, respectively. Crawford also hit a match-high .500.