Friday
The San Jose State University women’s volleyball team kicked off their season with a win against California State University, Northridge in the San Jose State/Santa Clara Tournament on Friday.
The two schools battled to five sets with the Spartans winning 3-2 and out-scoring the Matadors 84-52 at the Spartan Gym.
“I’m just so fired up to be on the court. I’m ready to get after every single point, every single game. I’m just ready to take this team to the tournament,” Freshman outside hitter Nayeli Ti’a said.
Ti’a led SJSU with 24 kills and had 6 assists.
“The standard that we're trying to create and hold for Spartan volleyball is in the making,” Ti’a said. “We're trying to reach that every day whether it's in practice, whether it's off the court [or] in a game. I think this game tonight was just like the first building block.”
The Spartans dominated the third set of the game (25-10) and concluded it with a block by senior middle blocker Jiana Lawson that would set up the game winning point for Ti’a.
Lawson led SJSU with 8 blocks including 3 in the first set.
“Get ready,” Lawson said. “Everybody starts off maybe not how they want to [but] I think we did exactly what we set out to do, which was come and get a win.”
The Spartans struggled out of the gate losing 26-24 with a total of 17 errors in their first set.
“Sometimes you might have to lose a set to realize we’re better than that and I think we did,” Lawson said. “We got the first nerves out and we just did what we know [and] what we’ve been doing in practice for almost two months now.”
The team recovered shortly after and won the following two sets 25-21 and 25-10.
“We couldn't get the ball in play,” first year head volleyball coach Todd Kress said. “We couldn't serve the ball on the court, couldn't hit the ball on the court. We were all over the place.”
Kress said he plans to improve on their performance and be more “cerebral on the court.”
“It’s always nice to win when you didn’t play your best and I know that our best is obviously well in front of us as we're a very young team.” Kress said. “Even though we do have
upperclassmen, there were only two people on the court tonight that played last year for this program.”
“We’re not gonna back down from any challenge.” Lawson said. “Teams should be afraid of us.”
Saturday
The San Jose State volleyball team took the court sweeping Jacksonville University 3-0 at the Spartan Gym on Saturday.
In their second game of the tournament the Spartans outscored the Dolphins 57-36 led by junior outside hitter Blaire Fleming with 15 kills.
“I think even though we have ups and downs, we do it as one which is one of our core values,” Fleming said. “No matter the score, we come together and we celebrate and I think that's what we did today, we all performed.”
Junior setter Brooke Slusser led the team with 35 assists and 4 aces.
“Our team is definitely the type of people where we come in every day, practice and work our butts off and we do the same thing in a game,” Slusser said.
SJSU was in the lead during the 1st set, finishing with a score of 25-17, but came out slow facing a 4-0 deficit in the second set.
SJSU head coach Todd Kress said he talked to his team about coming out with a better focus.
“We got to come out stronger and more in tune with one another from the onset as opposed to waiting until it's 4-0 or 7-0,” Kress said. “We're down and then we turn it on. We've got to come out with a much better focus and tighten it up from the start.”
Fleming said the team has been training for months to prepare for the start of the season.
“I think everyone is competing at the highest level every single day and putting in the work and so I know whoever comes off the bench and goes off, I've trusted them and that they're gonna do their job and help us,” Fleming said.
Sunday
In their final game over the weekend San Jose State women’s volleyball couldn’t continue their winning streak against Santa Clara.
The women's volleyball team would have its worst game losing 3-0 while being outscored 47-35.
“I didn’t think we were ready to go from the first whistle,” head coach Todd Kress said. “A couple of our players who were out acknowledged that they weren’t ready to go from the first whistle [and] there wasn’t enough energy during our warmup.”
Junior hitter Blair Fleming led the Spartans with 9 kills including 5 in the second set.
“Obviously not the same turnout that we wanted but we’re 2-1 and that’s not bad for our first three games,” Fleming said.
Junior setter Brooke Slusser led the Spartans in their third consecutive game in assists with 20.
“Things didn’t go the way we wanted, but I’d rather have it now than later in the season,” Slusser said. “We can go in now learning from this and learning how to bounce back.”
The Spartans will face off against the University of Portland at 10 a.m. on Sept. 1 for the Hornet Invitational in Sacramento.
