Volleyball takes down Tech
Utah State volleyball returned to the road Monday to notch its 20th win of the season with a five-set victory over the Bulldogs of Louisiana Tech.
Riding high off the momentum of a dominating three-set win over Nevada during Friday’s senior night match, the Aggies quickly found that their momentum did not travel with them to Ruston as they fell behind 5-0 early in the first set.
“Louisiana Tech played really well,” USU head coach Grayson DuBose said. “We got better as the match went on. I wasn’t sure we started off real great, and then I thought we got better and better.”
The Aggies responded by winning seven of the next 10 points to close the gap to just an 8-7 deficit, but the Bulldogs had a response of their own, reeling off the next three points to build back a lead they rode all the way to a 25-18 win in the first set.
The second set opened up slowly for the Aggies also, but the deficit was short-lived as USU, trailing 3-2, responded with four straight points to open up a lead that they would hold for nearly the entire set. La-Tech tied the set up three separate times at 9-9, 10-10 and 12-12, but was never able to take back the lead. USU held the lead for the rest of the set behind a dominant effort in the later half of the second set by junior outside hitter Liz McArthur, who had four kills, a block and an assist down the stretch of set two, which the Aggies won 25-20.
Set three started off with more of the back and forth scoring between the teams, with La-Tech taking a 5-4 lead early. USU took control of that third set by taking 10 of the next 14 points for a 14-9 lead. The dominance did not let up for the Aggies either, who built their lead to as many as 11 points before eventually taking a 2-1 lead in the match with a dominating 25-16 win in the third set.
“I thought our ball control improved over time as the match went on,” DuBose said. “I thought Laurel Bodily and Christine Morrill did a really nice job of passing the ball better and they both defended very very well and that was a big difference.”
Bodily and Morrill combined for 40 digs in the match to go along with three service aces. Bodily chipped in offensively with an assist as well.
The fourth set was a role-reversal from the third, with USU leading 5-4 early on, only to see the lead decimated by an 8-0 run by the Bulldogs. That lead held until the end of the match for a 25-22 fourth set win for LA Tech and set up a fifth set.
Just like every other set, the scoring was back and forth to start off until one team opened up a big lead for itself. This time, Utah State was the team that opened up the lead that would last until the end of the set.
“We got up about four points and we were kind of able to keep that cushion,” DuBose said.
Utah State held on to win the decisive fifth set 15-9.
McArthur led the Aggies with 16 kills in the match, followed by sophomore Shay Sorensen’s 12 kills. Sophomore outside hitter Josselyn White played a nearly mistake-free match, logging nine kills with only one error while hitting .364 for the match and chipping in with nine digs, an assist and a service ace.
As it stands, the Aggies will go into Wednesday’s match against New Mexico State with a chance to finish No.3 or No. 4 in the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) standings.
DuBose has his eye on that No. 3 going into the WAC Tournament, with the prospect of avoiding a match-up with Hawaii until the championship match, where he believes an upset isn’t out of the question.
“Anything can kind of happen, and it often does with us.”
That No. 3 seed won’t come easy, as USU will have to knock off the second place New Mexico State Aggies to get there.
“They are a very disciplined and very well coached volleyball team,” DuBose said. “Their outside hitters are going to be good. Their middles are going to be solid. To give ourselves the best opportunity, we need to serve tough to get those guys out of system and not let them keep comfortable.”
New Mexico State will be USU’s final match of the regular season, beginning at 7 p.m. in Las Cruces, N.M.
– matt.sonnenberg@aggiemail.usu.edu