Hayley Smith
Maria Brun hits the ball over the net during Colorado State University's pink-out game in Moby Arena against Utah State University Oct. 11. CSU lost 0-3.
Upon plunging into the deep end, Colorado State volleyball struggled to stay above the surface.
CSU crumbled under pressure against top in the Mountain West, Utah State, losing in a 3-0 (12-25, 22-25, 9-25) match Saturday. The Aggies, who are tied for first place in conference, ruined CSU’s winning streak in an aggressive shutdown.
In support of breast cancer awareness, the game was a pink-out, with players and fans decked out in pink outfits. This theme reminded the Rams of the fights that happen everyday, inspiring them to go out and fight for those who work everyday to beat cancer.
“There’s a lot of people out there that are competing and fighting some battles, and we show up on the court and fight most of ours,” head coach Emily Kohan said. “But there’s also some bigger and probably harder battles to go out there and fight.”
In the spirit of fighting battles, CSU came into the match ready to confront the undefeated-in-conference USU.
Despite winning the first point of the match, the Rams were quickly out of their depth as the Aggies blocked all attempts, leading to an early 6-1 scoring run. CSU continued to struggle against USU’s wall of defense throughout the game, resulting in only 28 kills, meanwhile the Aggies tallied 11 blocks.
Fighting against these blocks was Maria Brun, with 21 attacks in an attempt to power through the wall.
“I have to go with everything,” Brun said. “So I just tried to avoid the block or play with the block so we can kill and try to win the set.”
Even though the Rams put up a strong fight in the second set, the first and third exposed their struggling defense, USU’s Mara Stiglic helped to exploit it even farther. Stiglic recorded seven kills in the first set alone.
“(USU was) leading the conference in hitting efficiency, and you could see why, that they have a lot of different weapons,” Kohan said. “It’s not just carried by one person, and so that can make it difficult for us to block and defend.”
The Rams showed significant improvement in the second set, with similar attack and kill numbers to USU.
And in an attempt to adjust to the Aggies’ aggression, Jazen DeBina and Zosia Szczotkiewicz were brought in, helping to provide a new spark for CSU.
“I feel like it’s a breath of fresh air, and we’re able to try and figure out if it’s gonna work, and find something new and see if it clicks,” Kekua Richards said. “And those are also two very good players that also deserve to be on that court.”
In spite of today’s loss, the Rams aims to utilize the frustration of the game to motivate them further in their future match against Air Force (11-6, 3-2) Oct. 16.
“I feel like (we’re) just (wanting to) put in the work and wanting to shove it back at them,” Richards said. “I feel like having a loss like that should make everybody angry on this side, and be able to push them throughout the rest of the weeks that we have until playing it again. … So I feel like that’s my motivation.”
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Reach Sophia Schaller at sports@collegian.com or on X @sophschaller.