In its first Pac-12 game of the season, the No. 16 University of Utah volleyball team (10-2, 1-0 Pac-12) faced No. 25 Colorado (10-2, 0-1 Pac-12) this past Friday in the Huntsman Center. The Utes were coming off of a 3-1 win over in-state opponent Utah Valley before they began a two-match win streak as they took a 3-1 victory to start their conference schedule.
“I felt like in this match, I thought the team that was going to play the better defense, make stops and make defensive stops was going to win,” said head coach Beth Launiere. “We worked that a lot up this week because we haven’t been holding opponents to very contained hitting percentages. I thought there were so many similarities between Colorado and us that I thought we needed to do something different tonight, and I thought our defense was the difference.”
Colorado started with the first serve of the game, but Dani Barton immediately had a kill to get the ball in Utah’s hands. Utah added another kill before Colorado put up its first point of the night. Both teams battled back and forth for a while, but the Utes remained on top.
The Buffaloes were able to tie the score 6-6 after they had five kills and took advantage of two errors made by Utah, but the Utes were quick to take back the lead after a kill by Kenzie Koerber. The set point went to Adora Anae, who secured the Utes a 25-14 victory and 1-0 lead over Colorado heading into the second set.
As Utah started with the first serve of the second set, the first point went to Colorado. The Utes evened the score thanks to a kill from Tawnee Luafalemana before Barton gave her team the lead off a kill. It wasn’t long until the Buffaloes regained the lead only to run away with it. Colorado took the second set, 25-16.
In the third set of the night, the Utes managed to take the lead from the beginning with kills from both Luafalemana and Anae. This time, Utah controlled the lead for the whole set. Barton wrapped up the scoring with a kill for a 25-20 Utah win.
The fourth set saw more action as a call was reversed in favor of Colorado to give it the edge. The Utes, however, didn’t let that stand for long, and they took the lead with a kill from Luafalemana. There was another challenge during this set again by Colorado, but this time, the call stayed in favor of Utah. Anae finished the set with a kill to name the Utes victors after a 25-17 end result.
“I thought [the game] was awesome,” Barton said. “It was a great win and a great way to start off Pac-12. It is super exciting. I thought everyone planned super well and did their job.”
Utah will remain home to face California on Sunday, Sept. 24 in the Huntsman Center as it plays game two of its four-game homestand. First serve is set for 2 p.m. MT.
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