The Utah Volleyball team suffered their first loss of the season to the No. 8 ranked Purdue Boilermakers in straight sets 3-0 (27-29, 20-25, 13-25) Friday night at the Jon M. Huntsman Center.
The Utes record is now 4-1 to start the season, which is their best start since 2021. Despite the loss, head coach Beth Launiere is encouraged by her team’s performance.
“I feel that during that first set we were able to show that we can play with a team that’s ranked so high,” Launiere said. “I feel that Purdue exposed some areas that we need to work on, so I am looking forward to working that out.”
Utah came out strong in the first set with consecutive aces by Kamryn Gibadlo to give the Utes an early 4-7 advantage. The two teams battled throughout the set to tie the score seven times. The Utes then took a four-point lead on a kill by Allie Olsen to give Utah their first set point of the match. Unfortunately for Utah, Purdue would battle back to take the opening set 29-27.
Purdue never looked back at this point, opening a five-point lead in the second set 13-8 against the Utes. Utah continued to stay in the game, pulling to as many as two points at 20-18 but the net front presence of Purdue was overwhelming, with 11 blocks to go along with a .257 hit percentage compared to Utah’s .119 hit percentage.
The Utes took an early 5-7 lead in the third set with a block assist by Olsen. Purdue went on to tie the game at 9-9 and rattled off seven straight points to put the set and game out of reach for Utes.
Leading Utah with nine kills each was Lauren Jardine and Gibadlo, as well as Emrie Satuala with eight kills of her own. Both Grace Hammond and Isabelle Marco had double-digit assist games with 15 and 14 respectively. Vanessa Ramirez posted her second match of the season with double-digit digs with 16.
After the game Gibadlo spoke about her excitement for everything to come this season.
“I am really looking forward to playing some in-conference games this year,” she said. “I think we have a really good team, and I am excited to see how we matchup to other teams in our conference.”
The Utes will now travel to Chicago to play in the Loyola Chicago Tournament with Utah playing Loyola University on Friday and Saturday, Sep. 13-14.
