After a vigorous weekend, Colorado State ended on a good note in a landslide match against Grand Canyon.
CSU has started its winning streak, making this its second win of the season and first sweep (25-17, 25-12, 25-19). For multiple CSU players, Sunday afternoon was a successful night with several players, such as Kate Yoshimoto and Kennedy Stanford, breaking their individual season records.
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“(Yoshimoto) is really calm and collected,” coach Emily Kohan said. “She just makes it look easy and calms everybody down.”
Having a previous record of 15 digs, Yoshimoto now brings it to 18, marking this to be one of her best games yet.
Not only did Yoshimoto create a new record, but she was what Kohan referred to as a testament to the reason that GCU did not get a single ace throughout the entire game.
“Just coming into every game and being able to be focused and locked in and not take a single point off is kind of my goal every single game,” Yoshimoto said. “I definitely want to be a rock on the court and (have people be able) to trust me and be confident in my play.”
Sunday’s match marked Yoshimoto’s third game back since her injury, already making a place for herself on the court again.
As this is her third season, Yoshimoto has already established herself within the team, yet taking this time away, she is now able to bring in an outside perspective to better help the team.
“I played with these girls for two years, so it’s kind of like I never left that; hopefully, I can keep improving,” Yoshimoto said. “I’ve definitely noticed some things when I wasn’t on the court, and I’ve been able to bring that into the court and try to help everyone out.”
Like Yoshimoto, outside hitter Stanford was able to surpass her kill record of the season, breaking it midway through the second set.
In a tight game against No. 12 Oregon, she was able to score eight kills, destroying that this game with 12 being the next record to beat.
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“We knew off of three days of playing, we needed to come out with a lot of energy,” Stanford said. “It felt good getting the first couple swings as kills, and so that kept rolling throughout the match.”
Stanford was one of the lead attackers of the game, having a total of 20 attacks during the game and a hitting percentage of 0.250.
The team maintained their energy throughout the matches, at times doubling GCU’s score in the first two sets.
“We’re heading on the road next week, so I think (energy) is something that we’ve been emphasizing,” Stanford said. “Heading into this year, we want to be good on the road, and so (we want to find) a way to build energy.”
One of the key ways the team raised their spirits did not even happen on the court but rather on the bench. The players loudly supported their team, cheering the whole way through.
“Our bench did such a good job today of just being super high energy and feeding onto the people (on) the court,” Stanford said. “It’s something we want to carry on as we go to the road.”
Despite having a rough start to the season, the team is determined to make up for it in the future, continuing the winning streak against their next opponent DePaul, which has only lost one game this season.
After playing for three straight days, CSU has gotten better at perfecting the technical side of things, and although GCU might have been an easier game for CSU, it was one of their best games skillwise.
Kohan said she wants the team to “just keep building like that” and to continue increasing in skill as the season goes on.
“Compared to the other five (games), this is our best serving,” Kohan said. “We didn’t get aced once. … It was our best serving, and we didn’t have a ton of errors.”
Reach Sophie Webb at sports@collegian.com or on Twitter @sophgwebb.
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