Colorado State University Athletics
Colorado State
BYU
Volleyball Loses Five-Game Heartbreaker
11/17/2006 12:00:00 AM | Volleyball
Nov. 17, 2006
Colorado State dropped a hard--fought five-game match to #20 BYU, 23-30, 30-28, 30-28, 30-32, 15-13 in front of 2,074 fans in Moby Arena. With the loss, the Rams move to 17-8 on the season and 11-4 in Mountain West play and the Cougars improve to 23-4 overall and 12-3 in league play. BYU will be the second-seed in the MWC Tournament next week, while the Rams will be the three-seed and the two teams could potentially meet in the semifinals.
Sophomore outside hitter Jaime Strauss notched a career-high 24 kills, along with 11 digs, while sophomore middle blocker Mekana Barnes had 17 kills, four aces and seven blocks, junior right-side hitter Tonya Mokelki added 16 kills and 10 digs and senior outside hitter Katherine Whitney notched 10 kills along with 21 digs. Freshman libero Katelin Batten tallied 23 kills, marking the third straight match and fourth time in the last five matches she has had 20 or more kills.
"This was a very entertaining match," said head coach Tom Hilbert. "Four of the games were decided by two points -- anything could have happened to change the outcome. We've got to make certain things happen at critical times, we have to make serves and not let balls fall in on our side."
BYU was led by junior outside hitter Chelsea Goodman with 15 kills, while sophomore middle blocker Rachel Dyer had 14 kills and nine blocks, junior outside hitter Erica Lott tallied 13 kills and senior middle blocker Lindsy Hartsock had 11 kills. Sophomore libero Annie Pinegar led the match with 26 digs, while sophomore setter Amy Schlauder tallied 15 digs, Goodman had 13 and Lott chipped in 10.
"I think we played well, fought well and competed well," said Hilbert. "We played them better tonight than we did the last time we played them and I'm very proud of our players. This was a great crowd -- they were really into it and helped us."
Colorado State led the entire way in game one, winning 30-23. In game two there were 16 ties and 10 lead changes, with BYU winning by two. Game three was much of the same story with 14 ties and six lead changes and the Cougars won by the identical score, 30-28. The Rams trailed by seven in game four, 17-10 and battled back to win 32-30 behind nine blocks and aggressive serving. BYU went on to win 15-13 with the only tie at 4-4.
The Rams will close out the regular season tomorrow evening at 7:00 p.m. against league-leading and ninth-ranked Utah. The Utes are a perfect 15-0 in league play and will be the top seed for the conference tournament next week.
