LAS VEGAS — History repeats as Colorado State volleyball is back in the championship. 

When CSU beat Utah State Nov. 23, it secured the top spot within the conference, allowing the Rams to skip the first round of the Mountain West Tournament. Now that they defeated San Diego State in round two (20-25, 25-23, 25-21, 25-23), the Rams will be competing for first and a bid to the NCAA women’s volleyball tournament. 

“In our pregame talk, I kind of set the tone of: You’ve shown we can win in all sorts of ways,” coach Emily Kohan said. “I said, ‘Hey, don’t have expectations for how it’s supposed to go, but just trust that we know how to do this, and we’ll be able to recompose ourselves, and the maturity of all those fifth-year seniors showed that they can still win games.’”

The first set sent Ram fans into a pit of worry as CSU lost, completely unlike what had been seen in the match against USU.

If they had lost, their season would be over. Instead, the Rams will compete against San Jose State Saturday. 

“Yes, we will play tomorrow,” Kohan said. “It’s been a really complex and emotional situation (this season), and unless you’re in those rooms having those hard conversations and making those hard decisions, I don’t think you truly know how this feels.”

But for the game against SDSU, CSU was able to block out outside distraction and fight to continue its season. Yet throughout the game, there was never really a better team.

Yes, both teams had their moments with leads and momentum; yes, CSU did win three straight sets, but it was not an easy journey to get there.

SDSU had a total of 55 kills throughout the match while CSU had 53, but CSU had 58 digs while SDSU only had 55. Malaya Jones even met her match with Jasmine Davis, who scored 16 kills — only one less than Jones. Throughout every statistic there is no clear winner, but both teams knew what they needed: energy. 

“We were here last year,” Kohan said. “Last year, we lost in the championship match. … And I think that was leaving this court with that feeling right after losing those match points was one of the big deciding factors for these fifth-years — the five fifth-years — to come back. But they’ve been on this court, and they felt those feelings, and they’re trying to write their ending to the legacy that they want to leave at CSU volleyball.”

Like Saturday, CSU was in a similar position last year of fighting for first but lost to Fresno State. This game holds significance as for players Emery Herman, Karina Leber, Kennedy Stanford, Naeemah Weathers and Kate Yoshimoto, this will be their last time competing for a championship title at CSU. 

There is a clear recipe for how to win a match in volleyball: Be strategic and rack up some points while doing it. After the team has been consistently starting to really build the energy on the court, cheer like there is no tomorrow. Lastly, attack.

But whatever a team may do, they should never play it safe. 

Yes, it is better to serve it in even if it is easy then hand over a free point, but it is not the rainbow-shaped serves that scored the Rams’ 10 aces. 

“We can go and start really strong and be the hottest team and just stomp through at a 3-0 match,” Kohan said. “And, you know, against Utah State last week, we played pretty awful in the first set, but we showed we can recompose and do it.” 

One of the hardest things to do in any sport is come back when their opponent has the positive and confident energy on their side, but like the game against USU, CSU turned the tables and took back the game, ultimately winning. 

Although the lead switched off constantly, CSU remaining scrappy and gritty. When SDSU expected a hard attack, Stanford would tip short to throw it off, or Herman would catch it off guard by dumping the ball.

A star attacker of the game was Leber with 11 memorable kills; the SDSU defense was barely able to get a single touch on most of her kills.

“Gritty is a good word,” Herman said when discussing the team Nov. 23. “I think we’ve had some ugly wins, but it’s something we’ve done together.”

Following the controversy surround SJSU, media was not able to talk to players post-game. 

Although there’s a championship game against SJSU on the horizon, CSU remained a strong front and seemed to be a joyful team. One that had worked together all season to achieve this common goal that was finally coming true. 

“These fifth-year seniors had that COVID year screwed up, and they wanted to come back in this in this fifth year to show that they could have a regular championship season,” Kohan said. “This has been far from a regular season, but we get an opportunity to play for another championship tomorrow. But we also are showing some courage to be the team that says, ‘Hey, we’re going to go out there and we’re going to show courage in the way we play, and that this can stop with us.’ ”

Reach Sophie Webb at sports@collegian.com or on Twitter @sophgwebb.