Volleyball falls to UW in three sets
Andrew Riggs / The Collegian
Top: Fresno State’s Cori Hayes attempts a kill over Washington’s Christal Morrison.
Bottom: The Bulldogs celebrate following a block out of bounds by the Huskies.
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By Darrell Copeland III
The Collegian
It didn’t come as a surprise, but the Fresno State volleyball team fell victim to the defending national champion Washington Huskies 17-30, 21-30 and 16-30 in three games.
The match against the Huskies marked the first one of the season in which the Bulldogs played in the Save Mart Center, their new permanent home.
Despite the lopsided scores, Fresno State competed on the Huskies’ level for much of the match and only fell behind on offensive errors and outstanding defense from the Huskies.
“I thought that we played with Washington in phases of the match,” Fresno State head coach Ruben Nieves said.
Nieves gave his team a B-minus for its performance against the Huskies, but said there is only so much the Bulldogs can do against the quality of talent Washington brings to the table.
“[The Huskies] are bigger, they jump higher and they’re more experienced,” Nieves said.
Washington presented multiple problems for the Bulldogs in each of the three games, with middle blocker Alesha Deesing and outside hitter Christal Morrison routinely slamming balls over the net for kills.
Even with the potent Husky attack, the Bulldogs maintained they’re confidence and positive attitude with laughter and celebrations on each of their points, aside from the large point differential.
“We talked about how panicking and pointing fingers doesn’t help,” Nieves said. “The players have done something about it.”
For Fresno State, it can now look forward to playing an opponent not ranked in the top 25 nationally, as five of its first 10 matches already have.
The Bulldogs can now look forward to a match-up with UC Davis, the first time in a long time that the Bulldogs stand a realistic chance to expect a win beforehand.
“For the first time all season long we won’t be big underdogs,” Nieves said.
The match against UC Davis will be Fresno State’s final pre-conference tune-up, as Western Athletic Conference opponent Utah State looms ahead on the schedule.
“We want to go into WAC play 2-9,” Nieves said.
That would mean a victory against UC Davis Saturday night. In order for that to happen, Nieves would like to see more consistent play from his team, something he thinks can be learned from the match with the Huskies.
“We’re not as consistent as we want to be,” Nieves said.
“We think we can learn form Washington’s steadiness as a team and steadiness as individual players.”
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