The San José State women’s volleyball team secured its 10th win of the season against the University of Nevada, Reno on Thursday, beating them 3-1 at Yoshihiro Uchida Hall.
The Spartans (10-6, 1-2 MWC) returned to their home court for the first time after playing away for over a month.
Junior right-side hitter Brooke Bryant led the Spartans with 16 kills and second in blocks, with two in the teams’ win against the Wolf Pack (4-11, 0-4 MWC).
“It was just the adrenaline definitely high up there. I just wanted to win for not only our team but our program and our whole school like I think it's just to run when I kept going on” Bryant said.
The Spartans started the match slowly, blowing a 17-12 lead and dropping the set 21-25.
“Tonight was a nice team win. However, we didn't come out ready to play which was disappointing. You know that first set, we were flat.” SJSU head coach Todd Kress said.
Kress said he didn’t like his team's performance in the first set even though it won the match.
“We didn't have the energy, we didn't have the intensity, the grit that I would have expected being at home for our first conference match at home. So that was a little disappointing,” Kress said.
In the second set the Spartans came out on top 29-27.
During the set, Kress said he spoke to his team about stepping up and who was going to make a change.
“We were one point for point. We didn't have anybody making a play, and sometimes it just comes down to someone steps up and makes a play and changes the momentum.” Kress said.
During the third set the Spartans pulled away with a 17-10 lead and didn’t look back taking their second set 25-17.
During the final set of the game the Wolf Pack wouldn’t go down taking a 17-12 lead, but couldn’t hold on as the Spartans would come back to win 26-24. Junior setter Brooke Slusser and Brooke Bryant would combine for 9 kills in the final set of the match.
Slusser led the Spartans with 35 assists in the match. She said she was happy with the teams’ defensive performance.
“We did only thing we did in what Tuesday's practice was defense for almost three hours. And I think that's a big thing that we really wanted to focus on this game because there has been past games where that wasn't our strongest spot in the game,” Slusser said.
The Spartans would go on to beat Fresno State 3-1 on Sept. 30 and will now face the University of Wyoming on Thursday at 5:30 p.m. PDT at the UniWyo Federal Credit Union Sports Complex.
