Colorado State volleyball honored the university’s history Friday night with its annual Ag Day festivities. Players, coaches and fans alike all donned orange as a tribute to CSU’s agricultural college roots.

However, after their 3-1 (25-20, 21-25, 23-25, 23-25) loss to No. 12 Oregon, coach Emily Kohan and her squad ended the night cementing themselves in another form of history: becoming the first team in the program’s 46-year history to start a season 0-4.

Opposite hitter Malaya Jones said while she laments the results, she remains heavily optimistic of the team’s future.

“We’re playing really hard teams,” Jones said. “We want to play those hard teams. Our goal is to be the best we can be in November and this is part of the process. It’s just showing that we can fight with each team, (now) it’s just how can we finish it? It’s a whole learning thing for us and we’re taking a lot away from this.”

It’s no doubt that the strength of the Rams’ schedule has had tremendous impact on their success to begin the season. The green and gold has taken on two ranked opponents — No. 10 Florida and Oregon — to start their season, managing to keep both matches extremely competitive despite taking the loss.

Jones is certainly responsible for a large portion of that competitiveness. The redshirt senior finished the match with 20 kills, giving her a clean average of 18 kills per match this season. When Jones is firing on all cylinders, opposing defenses have struggled to find a solution.

As the team’s offensive powerhouse, does Jones feel any special responsibility to learn from the team’s less-than-desirable start to the season?

“Yeah, absolutely,” Jones said. “I’m like a film junkie so I’m going to watch this game at least three times before the weekend’s over. I just want to learn, learn, learn, learn and be able to communicate with my teammates what I see so we can all be better for it. I love film and I see like, ‘Oh, I could’ve done that better,’ and I immediately take it to the next match and I force myself to do better.”

While the results certainly haven’t been what the Rams want to see, the squad was able to add another piece to the puzzle Friday night: the return of veteran libero Kate Yoshimoto.

Yoshimoto did not miss a single start last season; she was an anchor in the Rams backline that was rarely absent for more than a couple points. However, to begin the 2024 season, the libero was sidelined for three games with a concussion.

In her absence, CSU struggled to find a solution at the libero spot. Kohan tried implementing a shared rotation between Aine Doty and Delaney McIntosh, but no one seemed to be able to prop up CSU’s system in the way Yoshimoto had in past seasons.

Now, with her Friday return, Kohan said she brings a lot of stability to CSU’s backline that they can build off of, especially with the new NCAA libero rules allowing for some creativity with the position.

“I think Kate is a big stability part in our passing and defensive lanes,” Kohan said. “I think using the second libero for a serving (substitution) or being creative with what our other — we call (them) ‘minis’ — can do. … In any given game it might be a little different but that’s still what we play with in practice.”

Yoshimoto posted nine digs and four assists in her return to the green and gold.

The redshirt junior said she is proud of her performance, but she’s ready to move forward and get better.

“I think I played pretty well,” Yoshimoto said. “I think there’s always room for improvement — there’s a bunch of stuff I could get better at.”

The Rams will take on Central Arkansas and Grand Canyon to finish out the weekend.

Yoshimoto said the team is optimistic about how it’ll fare over Saturday and Sunday.

“Every single game we’ve picked it up and we’ve been better and better,” Yoshimoto said. “I think just playing clean and making sure that we’re being ourselves throughout the whole game is definitely something we just need to change.”

Reach Will Engle at sports@collegian.com or on Twitter @willengle44.