At 6-foot-3, junior right side hitter Alli Spurrier doesn’t just stand tall, she stands out among her teammates. Although she has been held to only one start this season because of a nagging ankle sprain, she turned out to be quite a positive surprise last Sunday against the USC Trojans.
Spurrier tallied six kills and three blocks on the day, and although her numbers may not have been particularly high, her impact on the match was easy to see. Though the Utes were swept for the first time this season, Spurrier made things happen and was able to help close the gap.
“I think that we have a really good offense because it is so balanced,” Spurrier said. “It’s hard for other teams to get onto one player.”
Such has been a common trend throughout the season, as opponents have had a difficult time giving proper attention to every Utah player. Sometimes defenses will focus on Shelby Dalton, who leads the Utes in kills, but then Erin Redd-Brandon will step up. At other moments, it has been a challenge for opponents to contain both Morgan Odale and Chelsey Schofield at the same time. On Sunday, the Trojans were focused on staying away from Redd-Brandon and Bailey Bateman but didn’t think to include Spurrier.
“We are just able to stay balanced,” said Utah head coach Beth Launiere. “But at any point if anyone is getting hot, we will feed them the ball as long as we can ride that.”
The second advantage of balance is if a player is having a bad match, other players have been able to step up. For example, the Colorado Buffaloes contained outside hitter Makenzie Moea’i in the conference opener, but Bateman picked up the slack and tallied 11 kills in her spot as a middle blocker.
“Matchups are really big in volleyball. Most people probably don’t realize that,” Launiere said. “There will be some matches where we know that our middles are going to be key to the match and we know that we want to set them a lot because of the blocking schemes of our opponents.”
The Utes feel they have shown the ability to score in any position. Because of the type of players they have, the team has become somewhat unpredictable and is even getting some of its more unheralded players involved.
As the Utes prepare to play Washington State tomorrow and No. 1 Washington on Saturday, they will look to use that element of balance once again, and it is anyone’s guess who will be the player of the match.