Rams Close Home Schedule with Victory over Aggies

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Oct 16

6:00 PM

Volleyball

at Air Force

Oct 18

1:00 PM

Volleyball

at Nevada

Oct 23

7:00 PM

Volleyball

vs Air Force

Oct 25

12:00 PM

Volleyball

vs Wyoming

Oct 30

6:00 PM

Volleyball

vs Fresno State

FORT COLLINS, Colo. – All good things must come to an end.

Not only was it Colorado State volleyball's last Moby Arena appearance for the season, but two seniors would be saying their final goodbye to their home court on Saturday.

Which they did in style, taking a 3-1 decision from visiting Utah State, 14-25, 25-12, 25-13, 25-18.

Seniors Alexa Roumeliotis and Breana Runnels were celebrated during pregame as they were given well wishes from family and friends on the big screen.

"Everything has to come to an end," Roumeliotis said. "It was great to get a win with these girls. I think it was just fun to look and watch the younger kids play. My mark is going to be them and how they play and how they've grown through the semester. It's been fun to watch them play really well."

Facing Utah State, the lineup was ready to give it their all for their final home outing. And the team followed up by hitting its goal.

The road to success was far from perfect, and the first set against the Aggies wasn't a pretty one. The squad had trouble hitting USU, yielding a .037 hitting percentage in the first frame.

"All I told them was they weren't aggressive enough, and as a result they got their butt kicked. And that's the truth," head coach Tom Hilbert said. "We took maybe two hard swings in that entire set, and we got aced six times, too. We really were just out of sorts and I don't think we rotated all the way around. It's an anomaly of a set and I should've just said 'well let's put that behind us,' but I was a little bit animated with how I felt about it. I don't think that really helped them. I think our kids just knew they were better, and so once we started playing cleanly and not giving points away, it was a completely different match."

Hilbert was right. The rest of the sets went smoothly, and the second set was over just as fast as it began. Adjustments were made during the break and the hitting percentage ended at .469 for the second frame.

The third and fourth sets also yielded success as the Rams continued with a solid attack.

"We were just super consistent," said Roumeliotis, who led the team with 16 digs and dropped in an ace. "We kept our passing up, we had practically no hitting errors. We just played clean volleyball and waited for them to make mistakes. I think we're growing into that. The ball control is getting better and better every day. I think that's a big part of our game."

Before the game, Hilbert talked to the team about struggling to compete during the second contest of the weekend. The goal was clear, and it was achieved.

In addition to winning the second game of the weekend stretch, Hilbert saw great improvement in areas he didn't necessarily expect. What excited him the most was watching the team force errors from their competitor.

"That's one of the things that set us apart from them," Hilbert said. "We had way fewer unforced errors. What happens when you don't do things when you miss serves or hit balls out of bounds, is you make the other team earn points. And it's hard to earn 25 points. We were the cleaner team starting with set two, and that's the reason we won."

Without Runnels being present for the team, there has been a lot of pressure on the underclassmen to perform in her absence. And they stepped up to the challenge.

Last match, the team set several season-highs in an effort to find their stride without their senior outside hitter. This match, the team still held up strong and put up good numbers.

Even though there weren't an abundance of season highs, freshman Kennedy Stanford held the highest number of kills for the game, offering a whopping 14 kills to the Rams scorecard. Helping her along was sophomore outside hitter Jacqi Van Liefde, who added on another 13 and sophomore setter Ciera Zimmerman ended the match with 38 assists.

"I think we can just keep this momentum rolling," Stanford said. "We've done a pretty decent job prepping for these teams, and as we go into next week, we now know what we're capable of even with COVID and changing lineups. I think we just have to go out and be aggressive."

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