Twenty-one may be the lucky number in Las Vegas, but for previously red-hot UNLV, 21 was a bust as the Aggies took home a conference win in electric fashion on Colorado State’s historic Ag Day.
CSU pulled off their first sweep of the season against UNLV in a dominant 3-0 (25-21, 25-21, 25-21) performance.
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“I think that’s a really good data point for our team to move forward in the conference knowing that we can play against some of the tough teams,” head coach Emily Kohan said.
The Aggies began the match with a high octane attack, taking 7 out of the first 10 points of the set. Key kills by Naeemah Weathers and Kennedy Stanford in combination with some attacking errors by the Rebels allowed them to take control of the set early on and forced UNLV to take an early timeout.
The Rebels refused to go down without a fight, however, keeping CSU’s lead close the entire set, but the Aggies held out, taking the first set and setting the tone for the whole match moving forward.
“We weren’t happy with our outcome last week, so they wanted to come in here and say we are still someone to be respected in this conference, and we have goals to go beat some of the best teams,” Kohan said.
The Aggies’ stellar hitting percentage of .473 allowed them to keep the match competitive against the Rebels’ attack. Malaya Jones and Weathers shone with a combined 17 kills on 26 attacks, coming together to hit .654.
“Whenever we have the opportunity to score, we have to execute,” Jones said. “And that’s something that we practice a lot with game-day situations in practice.”
Utilizing their timeouts in combination with their strong defensive performance of players like Kate Yoshimoto, CSU kept UNLV from gaining much traction throughout each set.
“I think we definitely focused on our block a lot to line up … and (to) be in the positions they needed to be,” Yoshimoto said. “And my teammates did a great job of getting those lineups up, so it was super easy to read around them and play around them and be able to dig up all those balls.”
The Aggies’ offense was a well-oiled machine today, with six members of the team recording at least five kills.
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“We did a good job getting everyone involved, and so it wasn’t carried by one person,” Kohan said. “I think we’re the best team when all five of our hitters are getting involved and hitting the ball. That’s hard to block.”
The same could not be said for the Rebels, who struggled with making key mistakes throughout the match, recording 11 service errors and 15 attacking errors. These mistakes would ultimately cost UNLV momentum in critical moments, causing them to fall short.
A hard-fought final set pushed the Aggies against the wall, but a final kill by Kennedy Stanford sealed the deal and allowed CSU to get the sweep.
CSU now heads to the road to take on Wyoming (11-3, 0-3 MW) 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 3.
Will Engle can be reached at sports@collegian.com or on Twitter @willengle44.
