The San José State women's volleyball team continues to struggle after falling to Mountain West Conference foe, Colorado State University 3-2 Thursday at Yoshihiro Uchida Hall.
The Rams closed out the match with a win, out-scoring the Spartans 79-71. SJSU has now lost nine of its last 10 games.
The Spartans (12-15, 3-11 MWC) posted 11 kills against the Rams (15-10, 9-5 MWC) helping them win the first set 25-20. Colorado State dominated the second set from beginning to end, out-scoring SJSU 25-14, tying the match at one set a piece.
During the third set, the Spartans fell behind early 15-7, but SJSU overcame the deficit as freshman middle blocker Mari Lawton came into the game and provided a spark with two consecutive kills and one dig to help the Spartans swing the momentum to narrowly win the set 26-24.
The Rams forced a fifth set by dominating the fourth, outscoring the Spartans 25-15.
In the fifth set, SJSU could not find a rhythm and eventually lost the set 15-11, ultimately losing the match 3-2.
"Overall our block game was on point tonight and I thought we did a nice job of controlling their offense because their offense is high powered," Kress said. "If I had to give any constructive criticism for tonight's game it would just be the fact that we got a little tentative in the fifth set."
SJSU head coach Todd Kress said there were a whole bunch of line up changes for Thursday's matchup with only about 10 healthy players available for game action.
“I appreciate them so much because they fought for every single point,” Kress said. “Colorado State is one of the more physical teams in the conference, so it was key to get them out of sorts to where we were able to dictate play.”
He said he's proud of his team as its roster is depleted but they were still able to push Colorado State, who he thinks is one of the favorites to win the Mountain West Conference, to the very end going five sets.
Senior middle blocker Jiana Lawson said the game plan going into the match was to serve aggressively, attack the defense and the weak spots and be disciplined with their block hands.
"We lost statistically but I feel we won morally and culturally because we have been working towards that, to go into the locker room and feel like we have nothing left," Lawson said. "The outcome isn't ideal but we left it all out there and that's the biggest win we can have."
Even though the Spartans didn’t get the win, junior setter Brooke Slusser recorded a triple-double, which is only the 13th triple-double in school history and the first by a Spartan since 2009. Slusser had 10 kills, 19 assists and 16 digs.
"I'm not an actual hitter but I try my best and tonight I was just thinking about the shots that I saw the other hitters take," Slusser said.
Slusser said she credits her teammates for the triple double she recorded because the feedback she received from the reserve players on the bench helped tremendously.
"If we could tweak a few things, we could finish this game out with a win next time," Slusser said. "The I.Q. of our defense is growing every game, especially our blocking, which I feel was one of my biggest strengths tonight."
Slusser and redshirt outside hitter Nayeli Ti'a each recorded 10 kills Thursday night to lead the team. Ti'a also recorded her sixth double-double of the season with 12 digs, 10 kills, to go along with four blocks.
Junior right setter Brooke Bryant had seven blocks, two of them being solo and five block assists. Junior middle blocker Alyssa Bjork also had seven blocks, which was a career high.
The Spartans would go on to drop their third-consecutive loss against the University of Wyoming on Saturday 1-3.
SJSU will look for its first win in two weeks when it’s scheduled to face the University of Utah at 6 p.m. at Yoshihiro Uchida Hall on Thursday.
