The San José State women’s volleyball team lost its third consecutive match after being swept by Utah State University 3-0 at Yoshihiro Uchida Hall on Saturday.
The Aggies (14-5, 7-1 MWC) didn’t let off the gas against the Spartans (11-10, 2-6 MWC), outscoring them a total of 57-38.
Utah State started the first set hot jumping to an early 4-0 lead. After a kill by SJSU junior right setter Brooke Bryant that cut the Aggies lead 19-17, Utah state would not look back taking the set 25-18.
“We have a lot of things to work on. We’re gonna get in the gym and get better because we’re right there,” Bryant said.
Bryant, who finished the game with 9 kills, said there are a lot of things to work on after a tough weekend.
“We’ve lost so many games, three sets by two points like every single time and I think if we just get in the gym, we’ll get better. We're gonna come back on top, especially this weekend,” Bryant said.
Senior middle blocker Jiana Lawson led the Spartans with 4 blocks in the game and is first on the team with 101 blocks this season.
“I think [the back row defense] do their best and they do make very intentional efforts, we’re working on it a lot,” Lawson said. “We’re doing a lot of transitioning trying to figure out how to read the hitters.”
Lawson said she gives credit to the back row for defending when there are holes in the block.
“Part of that is on the block, but I think my back-row defenders is doing all they can and I really appreciate the grit that they show,” Lawson said.
In the second set, the Spartans kept the match close early but could not keep up with the Aggies’ offense as Utah State would get its second match win 25-20. Utah State senior outside hitter Tatum Stall led the Aggies with 6 kills in the set.
“We didn’t pass. They served us off the court. We had 11 reception errors, we had 10 balls that we only passed a one on,” SJSU head coach Todd Kress said.
He said rather than having multiple attackers, they only had one attacker to run their offense.
“Simply meaning that we only had one option to get the ball to our outside attacker. So we put our outside attacker in a really tough position to score,” Kress said.
The Spartans began the third set with an early lead, but once again could not carry the momentum, dropping the set 25-19. SJSU only held one lead throughout the entire set.
The Spartans are set to face the University of New Mexico at 6 p.m. Thursday at home in Yoshihiro Uchida Hall.
