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Malaya Jones leads CSU volleyball to victory over Air Force

Ben Fairly, Staff Reporter

October 14, 2023

Collegian | Cait Mckinzie

Colorado State University middle blocker Malaya Jones (1) goes up against two San Jose State players Oct. 7. CSU won against San Jose 3-0.

Head coach Emily Kohan and the Colorado State volleyball team found themselves with an even 3-3 record through six conference matches before heading to Colorado Springs, Colorado, to take on the Air Force Academy Falcons. Heading into their 60th match against each other, CSU has historically dominated their conference rival with an all-time record of 57-2, never losing an away matchup.

The game against the Falcons led up to a suspenseful fifth set, in which both teams relied on their heavy hitters.

Air Force counted on Joi Harvey, their Division I era leader in career assisted blocks, who set a career-high in kills with 20. For the Rams, Malaya Jones stepped up big for her team. Putting the team on her back during an intense fifth set, Jones accounted for all of CSU’s final five points, aside from a service error, all assisted by Emery Herman. Jones ended the day with an incredible 22 kills.

CSU started slow and gave up the first set (25-22) to the Falcons. Air Force had the advantage over the Rams early, as they held a hitting percentage of .237 compared to CSU’s minimal .108.

Fortunately, the Rams found their groove in the second set (25-18), out hitting their opponent .375-.130. Air Force had trouble creating plays and avoiding errors but was able to make a slight comeback late in the set. However, Karina Leber made her presence known on the court with a monster kill to extinguish the Falcon’s momentum.

Both squads traded blow after blow in the third set. Luckily, CSU gained the advantage throughout the set and then turned to Jones to close it out with two straight merciful kills. After a slow start to the match, the Rams stormed back and took consecutive sets from the Falcons, taking the third (25-20).

CSU was on track continue their historically dominant streak against Air Force, but the Falcons weren’t going down without a fight.

Highlighted by an eight-point run, Air Force evened the match and took the fourth set 25-19 and forced a fifth set. CSU had many areas of miscommunication and had trouble finding any sort of momentum.

The fifth set consisted of a constant back-and-forth battle between both squads. The match came down to the wire, and it quickly became a one-on-one matchup between Jones and Harvey. Eventually, Jones found the upper hand and single-handedly out-scored the Falcons, leading the Rams to a commanding victory over Air Force 20-18.

The Rams will look to continue strong as they travel to New Mexico to take on the Lobos 1 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 14.

Reach Ben Fairly at sports@collegian.com or on Twitter @benjaminfairly.

About the Contributor

Cait Mckinzie, Photo Director

Cait Mckinzie is a second-year student double majoring in art and journalism and media communication. She is one of two photo directors for the 2024-25 school year. Despite growing up in Renton, Washington, Mckinzie knew she wanted to go to Colorado State University since middle school. She had only ever been to Colorado twice, but she visited campus once, and that was all it took. At first, there wasn’t much in Fort Collins that Mckinzie was familiar with. But in high school, she was the co-head of visuals for her school newspaper, so she applied to The Collegian as a photographer to get back into a similar environment. Mckinzie was first introduced to photography by her grandfather, who has been a photographer most of his life. After he gifted Mckinzie her first camera in her junior year of high school, she began to take any assignment she could for her high school paper to improve her skills. Of all the memories made in her first year at CSU, most of the interesting ones came from The Collegian. One Halloween drag show assignment, a lot of mentorship and a few months of practice later, Mckinzie found herself being offered the position of photo director for the next academic school year. Mckinzie is excited for another year at The Collegian and aims to continue learning and growing during her time as one of the photo directors.

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