The Utah Volleyball team won their Big 12 debut against Texas Tech 3-1 (25-23, 30-28, 32-34, 25-23), Thursday night at the Jon M. Huntsman Center in Salt Lake City.
Head coach Beth Launiere said she was “relieved” to get their first Big 12 win.
“Our effort was great. Once we got a little more dialed in as the match went on, we played good volleyball; they just dug everything,” Launiere said. “You never know what the story of a match is going to be, and this one turned out to be a defensive battle.”
Over the four sets, the match would be tied 41 times with 20 lead changes, proving just how much of a battle the match was. Utah would have a .246 hit percentage to go with 75 kills as a team.
“They just would not go away; we couldn’t put them away despite getting a few leads,” Launiere said. “Our goal was to get five points at a time and just chip away however we could against a good defensive team.”
During the first set, Utah found themselves in an eight-point deficit before Coach Launiere called a timeout. Down 18-10, Utah would go on a 15-5 run to end the first set.
“I wasn’t happy with how we were playing; I thought we were too loose,” Launiere said. “We had a great preseason, and I thought we weren’t competing enough, so I just told them that they needed to battle more.”
The Utes would win the race to 15 in the second set on an ace by Claranne Fechter to go up 15-14. The two teams would battle back and forth until Texas Tech got the first set point opportunity to make it 24-22. Utah would battle back four separate times until eventually Kamryn Gibadlo would get the kill to give the Utes the set 30-28.
“The Big 12 is such an amazing volleyball conference,” Gibadlo said. “Coach told us we need to work our butt off, and at the end of the day that’s what we do, and I think we did a really good job tonight.”
Utah would battle throughout the third set and ultimately come up short 34-32. Texas Tech was first to set the point, which Utah battled back six separate times during the third set.
The Utes would win the race to 15 in the fourth set and maintain control despite a late Texas Tech push. Utah would get the first opportunity for set and match point on a kill from Ashley West to make it 24-20. Eventually, Texas Tech battled back to within one before West once again put the match away with a kill.
Leading the Utes with 17 kills and one of four players with double-digit kills was Gibadlo, Lauren Jardine (14), Emrie Satuala (13) and Allie Olsen (10). Isabelle Marco led the Utes with 35 assists as well as 10 digs, and Grace Hammond with 29 assists. Fechter had a team-high of 20 digs, while Kamry Bailey had 17.
Next up, Utah will play host to Colorado on Sunday at the Jon M. Huntsman Center as part of more Big 12 conference play.
