WAC champs!
If you were to compare the Utah State volleyball team’s late-season explosion to one of those famous sports underdog films, no one would argue with you.
Then again, you might just say the WAC Tournament Champion, NCAA tournament-bound Aggies simply returned to their early-season form that propelled them to an 11-0 start.
The Aggies (24-8), who entered the tournament as the third seed with a 9-7 conference mark, continued an improbable late season run by sweeping No. 3-ranked Hawaii (25-15, 27-25, 26-24), who had not even lost a single set in 18 WAC matches this season, in the WAC Tournament Championship at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, Nev. on Nov. 24.
Bringing down one of the sport’s collegiate giants grants the Aggies an automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament to play No. 7-seeded California, Friday at the Haas Pavilion on the UC Berkely campus. USU will be appearing in the NCAA Tournament for the fourth time in school history, and first since 2005.
USU all-time assists queen Chelsea Fowles, senior middle blocker Shantell Durrant, and sophomore outside hitter Shay Sorensen joined WAC Tournament MVP Liz McArthur on the all-tournament team.
Utah State joins Southern Cal as the only team to have brought down the Rainbow Wahine, now 28-2, this season. USC defeated Hawaii in a five-set battle in Manoa, Hawaii way back on Sept. 5.
The Aggies join Hawaii and BYU as the third team in the entire history of the WAC to win the tournament championship. Hawaii has won the tournament 10 times. USU found themselves matched in the title game against a force that had won 31-straight WAC tournament matches, along with a 23-match winning streak, including 62 consecutive set victories.
Yes, that’s correct. 62.
Happy Holidays, Logan.
Needless to say, USU head coach Grayson DuBose was beyond pleased with the Aggies’ stunning championship run, giving credit to the players for pulling off the trick.
“(Volleyball) isn’t rocket science. The kids are the magic,” DuBose said. “We as coaches can put together scouting reports, but the kids needed to make the magic happen,” he said. He said the team did not make any changes to their practice habits in sparking another winning streak, after limping through a 4-7 mid-season slump that at one point included a 3-6 mark in conference play.
“Our seniors have worked for this sort of goal for four years,” DuBose said. “They paid a price to create this sort of success.”
The milestones don’t stop.
Saturday’s title win marks just the second time in four years that Aggie seniors Fowles, USU all-time digs leader Christine Morrill, and middle blocker Katie Astle have defeated the Rainbow Wahine, dating back to 2007, when they snapped a 108-conference match home winning streak for UH at the time.
Hawaii’s elimination from the WAC Tournament was their first since 1997.
Additionally, the Aggies’ Cinderella victory gives them the most wins by any USU team since 1982, and seventh-most in school history.
The Aggies’ memorable tournament run Nov. 22-24 included a first-round win over Nevada (25-17, 25-20, 14-25, 25-15) and a thrilling semifinal victory (25-23, 20-25, 25-21, 22-25, 16-14) over second-seeded New Mexico State, the same team the northern Aggies had topped less than a week earlier in Las Cruces, N.M.
The Aggies’ historical run in Sin City completes a strong finish to a regular season that gives the Aggies nine wins in 10 contests, with six consecutive victories, heading into collegiate volleyball’s version of March Madness. The only loss in that time span came Nov. 6 in Logan, a five-set defeat to Idaho.
“We served very well and we blocked tough,” he said. “Those guys weren’t able to hit where they wanted to go.”
DuBose also said he was particularly impressed with Sorensen, who had 13 kills and hit .684 for the match; McArthur, who notched 12 kills and sophomore outside hitter Josselyn White, who finished with nine kills and six digs.
“We asked a lot of those guys, and they answered the bell,” he said. “We played with controlled aggression.”
USU led New Mexico State 2-1 before dropping the fourth set and trailing 13-10 in the fifth, only to rally with a 6-1 run for the improbable come-from-behind victory.
“We showed a lot of resiliency, especially after that fourth game,” DuBose said. “In the fifth game, we scratched and clawed and fought our way back.”
A drive – and tournament for the ages – that all began with a typical first-round match against sixth-seeded Nevada.
“We controlled from the beginning,” DuBose said. “Our outside hitters were good when we needed them to be good. Josselyn (White) has been coming into her own, and Liz (McArthur) always has wonderful hits.”
McArthur and White tallied 16 and 14 kills, respectively, against the Wolf Pack.
DuBose said his team’s late surge following their third-best start in school history can be attributed to many factors, as they prepare to play on collegiate volleyball’s largest stage.
“Our sense of urgency increased. We as a team and a staff realized we had become complacent,” he said. “Our seniors came to the point where they realized that this was it.”
Those seniors are well-accomplished on the court, from setting all-time records to staging monumental turnarounds, and, yes, even giant-slaying.
“They’ve changed the culture of the program, and made me a better coach in the process,” DuBose said. “They deserve to be continuing their season.”
– rhett.wilkinson@aggiemail.usu.edu