The No. 24 Utah women’s volleyball team is facing its last road trip of the season. First stop8212;San Diego, Calif., to take on the Aztecs.
With only five conference games left, every game is more important than ever if the Utes hope to get an invitation to the NCAA tournament.
“We have big games coming up and we know it,” said head coach Beth Launiere. “But we can’t focus on that, we just have to take it one at a time.”
The Utes are preparing like they always do: working hard in practice, watching game film and scouting out the next opponent.
“We’ve gone in strong to practice, knowing we can’t be tired or weak, but have to focus on doing our job,” said sophomore Karolina Bartkowiak.
After spending the past couple of weeks focusing on floor defense8212;passing and serving8212;the Utes have no big issues that need to be dealt with and are focusing on fine-tuning everything
“We’ve talked about being blue-collar and just working really hard on the little things that are going to make us that much better,” Launiere said.
Statistically, the Utes are ahead of the Aztecs when it comes to kills, assists, digs, service aces and blocks per set.
Regardless of what the statistics say, the Utes know they have their work cut out for them if they want to beat San Diego State.
“They are playing great volleyball right now,” Launiere said. “They have a lot of young players that have been getting better and more confident as the season goes on. We’re going to have to be 100 percent prepared.”
SDSU is led offensively and defensively by Lauren Salisbury with 3.05 kills and 1.04 blocks per set, while Michelle Ferrer holds down the back row with 3.53 digs per set.
Utah continues to be led by middle blocker Lori Baird, averaging 3.13 kills and 1.46 blocks per set. Keisha Fisher is the leader on the back row with 3.08 digs per set.
After taking on the Aztecs, the Utes will head to Sin City for their last away game of the season against the UNLV Rebels.
Utah, however, isn’t looking that far ahead, as they are dealing with SDSU first.
“We’re going to focus on San Diego and then we’ll focus on UNLV,” said senior Kathryn Haynie. “We know these games are big but we have to treat them just like any other game and come out with a win.”
Thien SokKathryn Haynie and Cinthia Silva collide as they go for the ball. The Utes are going on their final road trip of the season facing conference opponents SDSU and UNLV.