Women’s volleyball drops tough match to conference-leading Colorado State

Colorado State continued their dominance in conference play with a 3-0 sweep over Utah State Thursday night in Logan.

This contest had a bit of a David vs. Goliath feel to it, but, unfortunately for USU, Goliath proved to be too much to tackle. Statistically, Colorado State has been one of the best teams in the conference this year. The Rams came into the match with the best record in the Mountain West, 12-2, and also sporting a nine game winning streak. Incredibly enough, they’ve also recorded seven sweeps over that nine game span. One of those games being the last meeting between these two teams. That particular match saw Colorado State grab a sweep at home over the Aggies in Fort Collins on homecoming night.

The first set opened up with USU playing very organized and the Aggies showed that they weren’t going to be intimidated by Colorado State. Both teams traded points back and forth almost repeatedly until the first media timeout, at which point Colorado State clung to a 15-12 lead. Soon after, there was an incredible rally in which the ball was played back over the net at least ten times before the Rams were eventually able get one past the Aggies.

Not getting deflated, USU was able to knot things up at 20-20 after a string of good kills from sophomore outside hitter Gabbi Shumway and freshman middle blocker Corinne Larsen. Unfortunately for the Aggies, this was the end of their attack as Colorado State went on a 5-0 run to close out the set.

After the match, Aggie head coach Grayson DuBose shared some of his thoughts on how the set ended.

“At 20-20 we have to be better,” he said. “Under pressure, we have to be a little bit better.”

The second set was a tale of two halves. After such a tough first set, the Aggies came out a little sluggish in the second. Colorado State capitalized on this by taking a 15-8 lead early in the set, converting eight kills and building up momentum looking to close out the set.

However, Utah State showed tremendous resilience and clawed their way back from being down 24-14 with a run that seemed to rattle the opposition out of their comfort-zone. The Aggies caused Colorado State to force 13 errors in the frame, and landed nine straight points to bring the match within striking distance at 24-23. The Aggies inched their way closer to a set win while fighting off Colorado State from closing it out themselves. But, in the end, a well called timeout for the Rams got their team organized and they found a way to get the final point they were looking for.

Senior libero Tasia Taylor talked about what her team did to propel such an incredible run.

“Yeah it’s exciting,” Taylor said. “At timeouts we just kept saying let’s do what we can and let them make the mistakes.”

She also shared what the team has been doing to counter being involved in close sets.

“That’s something we’ve actually been working in all week, just working on finishing games,” Taylor said. “Because we’ve been having a lot of close matches and so we’ve been working really hard to finish those close sets.”

However, two straight sets of grueling volleyball with the top team in the conference looked to finally get the best of Utah State in the third.

Colorado State re-grouped during the break and their experience led them through the home-stretch and got them to the end of the match to earn their tenth straight victory. The Aggies showed heart, but in the end, they gave up too many errors in the frame while only scoring six kills. This being juxtaposed to Colorado State’s 14 kills and two errors in the same frame.

DuBose spoke on what might have gone wrong for the Aggies in the third set as Colorado State pulled ahead.

“I think it takes a lot energy to do that, and to sustain it, that’s the key right,” DuBose said. “You gotta be good over time, you can’t just be good for a minute or two. You have to sustain it over a period of time and I think that’s Colorado State’s M.O. That’s what they’re good at.”

Having only three games left on the schedule, Utah State looks to close out the home portion of their season on senior night with a home-win against Wyoming on Saturday night. The game starts at 7:30 at the Wayne Estes Center.

Twitter: @dren_sports