LAS VEGAS — Ever since December of last season, when Colorado State volleyball’s season came to an abrupt ending with a loss to Texas A&M, it has not only been fighting to get back to the Mountain West Tournament, but to the NCAA Tournament.
And now the Rams are one step closer.
After working through their slow start and dropping the first set, CSU powered through, beating San Diego State 3-1 (18-25, 25-20, 25-18, 25-13) Friday in the MW Tournament semifinals, securing a spot in the championship match against Utah State.
And after already falling twice in the conference season to the Aggies, it’s detrimental to iron out their Achilles’ heel: starting strong.
“This is everything you worked for for four months — or for some of them, for nine months,” head coach Emily Kohan said. “Just breathe, enjoy the moment. But also, it’s not the time to be safe. You want to go be aggressive and leave it all out there … then you have no regrets about it. But with as good of a team as Utah State is, we’re going to have to be pretty aggressive.”
But in these moments of darkness — especially recently — middle hitter Eve Wilson has been a light, starting and ending with the same level of power.
After the first set, in which CSU had lost, Wilson led both sides of the court in several categories, with five kills, two blocks and a hitting percentage of 71%. By the end of the night, she was still the leader in kills with 14 and hit a 65%.
“I have a lot of trust in Erin (Debiec), and I think I’ve played a lot of college volleyball, so I think it’s just kind of (a) comfortability type thing,” Wilson said. “And so I think it helps our younger players if they see someone else who’s not rocky, they can grasp on to that. And so just being that kind of a consistent thing to look at (is important).”
The offense has been a powerhouse this season, but as Wilson pointed out, Debiec has led the charge with her assists. Despite this only being her first official year as the Rams’ setter, she’s already tacked on 1,000 assists — only two CSU setters before have been able to achieve that.
In Friday’s match, Debiec showcased her versatility beyond the setter role, stepping into an attacker and being bold in the front row, whether it was dumping the ball over or going up for the block. In fact, Debiec had the highest number of blocks with six.
“Her blocking has improved a ton; we’ve spent a lot of time on that,” Kohan said. “She’s always going to be a setter that likes to serve her hitters more than herself, and she’s really athletic at the net to handle those tight passes and put up hittable balls versus having to dump or choose to dump. She likes her assists probably more than her kills.”
But for Debiec to dish out her ideal sets, it starts with the back row — one of the spots Kohan pointed out was a weakness in the beginning.
“We were a little jittery, I was really proud of Aine (Doty) for kind of settling down in her passing and pulling the passes off the net,” Kohan said. “She was a little tight, and she just kind of took a breath and aimed her target a little more off the net and was able to settle down.”
Another bump at the beginning of the match was the lack of film against the Aztecs. Like CSU, SDSU has had its share of injuries, and with one of its main starters returning, it added a level of difficulty to the Rams’ scouting report.
But as the match progressed and the Rams grew more comfortable with SDSU’s plays, the number of rallies increased.
“I think we really picked up our defense as the game went on,” Wilson said. “And then (SDSU’s) a defensive team, too. So I think when both teams are scrappy, the rallies get longer.”
A highlight of CSU’s defensive squad was the outside hitters: Maria Brun and Halle Jameson. Brun led the night in digs with 14, and Jameson was a few behind with 10. Although Jameson has been leading the team recently, she’s new to the tournament.
On the other hand, Brun was here just one season ago with a completely different green-and-gold roster.
“It’s a really new team,” Brun said. “Before the game, we were like, ‘OK, we’ve (built) this team. Since the beginning of the season, we’ve been growing so much; we’ve built this team. So I’m so proud of everybody.”
The Rams have grown together since the beginning of the season, but it’s not over yet, as the hardest is still to come. The Aggies are on a 20-game streak and are the only thing standing in the way of CSU’s NCAA berth.
The championship matchup will take place at 4:00 p.m. Saturday at the Cox Pavilion at UNLV.
“I think the beautiful part about tomorrow is it doesn’t matter what the record is,” Kohan said. “And I think it’s even some more motivation for our team that we played them really well the second time, and it didn’t go our way. And so now we have a chance to play them well when it matters most, and hopefully turn that record around.”
Reach Sophie Webb at sports@collegian.com or on social media @sophgwebb.
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