TEMPE, AZ — Several fifth-year seniors had a non-ideal freshman year due to Covid-19, the hope being for a regular last season, yet the Rams got everything but. 

What started out as the team that broke the record for most losses in a row, then turned into the Mountain West champions and finally Mountain West tournament champions. Despite bumps in the year, Colorado State volleyball bonded throughout the season, making the loss against Texas A&M (20-25, 25-16, 27-29, 23-25) that much more bittersweet.

Seniors Naeemah Weathers, Kennedy Stanford, Kate Yoshimoto and Karina Leber have played at CSU since their first year, but the secret ingredient was soon to come. In 2023, Emery Herman transferred to CSU, completing the list of 2024 seniors the Ramily grew to love. As they grew so did their skills, leading them all the way to the NCAA women’s volleyball tournament.

CSU took on A&M, the sixth seed within the tournament. Going in, CSU players ranked better in the NCAA than the Aggies’ players — whether it was Weathers for hitting percentage or Malaya Jones for kills. However, A&M is a part of the Southeastern conference — a notably more challenging than the Mountain West — therefore making it harder to get better stats.

Both teams fought hard right off the bat, and although there was not the most kills or aces, CSU played smart and managed to keep the game neck-and-neck. Although the overall set score might not reflect it, it was an extremely tight match. But unfortunately for the Rams, losing means this was their final game of the season.  

“I’m incredibly proud, incredibly proud of the way we played volleyball,” coach Emily Kohan said. “We played high level volleyball tonight. And these five seniors, the four fifth-years that decided to come back for their COVID year, this was the moment they wanted to come back for: to play in postseason. And man, they went toe-to-toe with a great team.”

Despite playing some of their best volleyball, the Rams began to lose themselves at the end of the first set, foreshadowing what was yet to come. 

But CSU truly showed that it was able to not only play but play well in the big leagues. Within the second set the team found themselves again, dominating with a 4-0 scoring run to end the set; that confidence carried over into the third. Despite the score being close at first, CSU tore ahead creating a five-point gap, making it very difficult for A&M to have any hope of coming back.

Yet Logan Lednicky was a force to be reckoned with on A&M’s side of the court. The same fire the audience sees as Jones winds up for a hit was seen in Lednicky and after some kills from her the Rams were no longer leading. Despite carrying the set it was now neck and neck, this is when the demise for CSU set in.

“For me personally, I was like: I have to give it my all, no matter what happened previously or in front of me … and I think the rest of the team also followed,” Jones said. “And I was just really proud that we continued to show up no matter what happened in previous points or previous sets.”

Although this loss does mean the end of an era, the last time these players would ever play together as Rams, they knew how to play strategically and force A&M to work hard for a spot within the next round in the NCAA tournament.

Instead of wailing the ball every time, Jones would strategically tip the ball over, helping her rack up 26 kills throughout the match. Alongside her was Herman who continuously dumped the ball over, scoring seven kills and hitting a .778 before the third set. 

“It’s big girl volleyball,” Jones said. “You have to be able to perform and also stop one of their hot hitters in those key moments, because we know they’re going to feed her every single chance that they can get. So it was just a matter of being fine tuning in the end, just playing really aggressive and also being able to stop a really aggressive hitter as well.”

Following this season — despite great players be there in following seasons — there will be a presence missing. For the five seniors, it was always a possibility that any game following the regular season could their last, but that just made them shine more.

Weathers became a wall the Aggies struggled to ram through, tallying a game-high total of six blocks throughout the match. She managed to get 11 kills across the four sets, hitting a .500 — the best percentage from any hitter that night. 

“I think we can all look at these stat sheets and the record books and see how big of an impact (the seniors) had on CSU volleyball,” Kohan said. “(Weathers) is the most efficient middle that’s ever played at CSU. … You miss them statistically, but you miss them more as humans. Our mission statement is, ‘CSU volleyball is building champions, doing championships’ and we got champions that won championships.” 

Right there with Weathers, Jones racked up five blocks and graduate student Leber tallied four. The team played the best they could, but in the end it was not enough.

CSU had the potential to win the game. It was never a landslide for A&M, but after Lednicky began to get her flow going and the Aggies scored two service aces in a row, something broke and was never regained. In the fourth set there was hope, but after A&M called a play under review and won, it was too close for the team to not to pull away with a victory. 

“We went out with the intention of just playing so free and so hard,” Weathers said. “And I think that all of us, everyone on the court and those who make up our bench, absolutely did that. …We’d say, ‘OK, one up, one down, we got this next one. Give it your all, this might be the point.’ And so it definitely impacted the way that we went out in the intent in which we wanted to play volleyball.” 

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