The Utah volleyball team kept pace with the conference leaders by beating UNLV in three sets (25-16, 25-19, 26-24) Saturday at Crimson Court.
Head coach Beth Launiere said she was pleased with the match, which kept the Utes tied with TCU in the loss column of the conference standings, and a game behind Colorado State.
“This was a good match for us,” she said. “We had a lot of energy. We came together as a team and were pretty focused the entire match. It was nice for us to come back and win that third set. We had some lulls there, but that was pretty much the only tough stretch we had during the match.”
The Utes opened the match with a 6-0 run in the first set, a stretch that included two kills by outside hitter Cinthia Silva. UNLV scored three of the next four points to make it a four-point game, but that was as close as the Rebels got, as Utah pulled away for the 25-16 win.
Launiere said the key throughout the match was the play of libero Keisha Fisher, who had 14 digs and six service aces.
“I know (Karolina Bartkowiak) had a great match this afternoon,” Launiere said. “But Keisha played great defense for us and had good energy. That was really a key factor for us in the match.”
The second set started much like the first, with Utah grabbing a 12-5 lead on the strength of three kills by Bartkowiak. The Rebels slimmed the lead to just two at 17-15, but two aces by Fisher extended Utah’s lead and gave them the set 25-19.
When the Rebels got close in the second set, outside hitter Sarah Hibbert said the Utes had an answer.
“We just knew that we had to start playing with more energy,” she said.
The roles were reversed to begin the third set, as this time the Rebels took a 5-0 lead. UNLV eventually extended its lead to eight at 14-6 and led by seven at 18-11. A kill by middle blocker Chelsey Sandberg and a block by Bartkowiak narrowed the gap to five. With the score at 23-19, the Utes used kills by Silva and Sandberg, along with two attack errors by the Rebels, to tie the set. Another UNLV error gave Utah the lead, but the Rebels tied it at 24 on the next play. Consecutive kills by Sandberg and Hibbert completed the Utes’ third-set comeback and ended the match.
Launiere blamed falling behind at the beginning of the set on a lack of concentration.
“It’s just a choice by our players to stay focused,” she said.
For the match, Bartkowiak led the Utes in kills with 12 and collected 10 digs for her ninth double-double of the season. Silva also earned double-digit kills with 10, and Hibbert chipped in seven kills.
The win marked the fifth sweep the Utes have recorded this season, two of them coming at the expense of the Rebels.
The Utes will now head back to the road with two conference matches, beginning with New Mexico on Thursday.
Thien Sok/The Daily Utah ChronicleKeisha Fisher had 14 digs and six aces in the Utes? three-game sweep of UNLV on Saturday. Utah?s win kept the team in a tie with TCU for second place in the conference.