When the Utah volleyball team welcomes UNLV to Crimson Court on Saturday, the Utes will focus on playing a complete game, something that has eluded them in the past.
Head coach Beth Launiere said the main reason for the team’s occasional lulls is a lack of confidence. She noted that the problem played a large role in falling behind 2-0 to BYU last Friday, even though the Utes recovered and won the match in five sets.
Lacking confidence is something the team must remedy to take the next step as a team, Launiere said.
“It’s something we’ll have to work at every day,” she said. “We’ve got to execute more8212;that will help. We also have to build on it every day during practice.”
Junior opposite hitter Karolina Bartkowiak agreed, saying hard work is the best cure.
“People need to come to practice every day ready to work,” Bartkowiak said.
While the Utes work on confidence, they will host a team they have had success against in the past. Earlier in the season, the Utes swept the Rebels in Las Vegas, led by Bartkowiak’s double-double performance that saw her collect 11 kills and 10 digs. Overall, Utah has won three straight matches against UNLV and 27 of 30 in the all-time series history. Additionally, the Rebels have never beaten Utah at Crimson Court, where the Utes are 9-2 on the season and have won 17 of their past 18 conference matches.
Despite the team’s dominance over the Rebels in the past, Launiere cautioned against a letdown.
“They’ve got good athletes,” she said. “We’ll have to be prepared for them.”
Two athletes in particular stand out for UNLV. Cursty Jackson leads the Rebels in both blocking and kills. She ranks eighth in the conference in blocking, averaging more than one per set. Jackson also figures prominently in the conference rankings in kills, where her 3.29 per set average has her fourth in the conference.
The Utes come into the match third in the conference standings, trailing Colorado State by one and a half games and TCU by half a game. However, the half-game deficits are because of the Utes playing one game fewer than both the Rams and Horned Frogs.
Despite just seven conference matches remaining, Bartkowiak says the race to determine a Mountain West champion is still wide open.
“We’re excited to be getting to that point of the year,” she said. “We’re still trying to get better. While we’ll still take it one game at a time, we do have a lot of work ahead of us in the remaining games. This conference is crazy this year, anyone can beat anyone, so it’s going to come down to the end.”
After the short stint at home, the Utes head back on the road for two matches. They will face New Mexico on Thursday and TCU on Nov. 7. Utah fell to New Mexico earlier in the year, but defeated TCU and both games went four sets.