@UNCBearsVB Battles Hard, Falls to Colorado State

Tuesday, August 30

Greeley, Colo.

7:00 pm

University of Northern Colorado

1-2

Colorado State

3-0

Colorado State

Northern Colorado

Photo by: Rob Trubia

8/30/2016 11:44:00 PM | Women's Volleyball

Box Score

Northern Colorado volleyball took a set off CSU Tuesday, in 3-1 loss

By: Ryan Pfeifer, UNCBears.com

GREELEY, Colo. – The Northern Colorado volleyball team hosted in-state rival Colorado State Tuesday, falling to the Rams 3-1 (17-25, 25-21, 16-25, 12-25).

(8/31/2016) Volleyball vs Colorado State

How It Happened
While Colorado State jumped out to an early lead in the set, the Bears responded making it 4-4 before the Rams went on another run. CSU put up five straight points to go up 9-4 and give themselves a comfortable cushion through the rest of the set to take the early 1-0 advantage.

Set two belonged to UNC. After trading the first 16 points of the set, Northern Colorado went on a block party to spark a 6-0 run. Natalya King was a big part of the run with two solo blocks and three block assists during the rally. The Bears held on to the lead, before CSU made a comeback, getting within one at 22-21. Kortney Lockey and Ashley Guthrie scored the next three points for the Bears to even the match at one at intermission.

Following the break, CSU continued to hit well, while the Bears offense began to struggle. During set three, the teams played within two points of each other until a pair of 4-0 runs by the Rams in the middle of the set game them a 19-10 lead.

In the fourth set, Northern Colorado trailed by just two, at 7-5 before another pair of big runs from CSU. The first was a 5-0 one to make it 12-5, followed up by 7-0 run to put the Bears away with a 19-10 lead. The Rams closed out the set, 25-12 victors, taking the match from UNC.

Game Changer
Colorado State had a four-headed monster of an attack on Tuesday night, but it was Sanja Cizmic who was the main leader of the group. She had eight of her match leading 15 kills in the third set, along with one of her five block assists to help chanhe the tide towards CSU.

Notables
- Senior setter Ashley Guthrie had her third double-double of the season with the 31 assists and 11 digs.
- Natalya King had a big night at the net, with two solo blocks and six block assists.
-Following the break, UNC's offense struggled, hitting below .100 in each set, and ending up below that mark for the match as well.

Quoteables

Alex Kloehn

How the flow of the game felt:
"We would adjust and they would adjust and we were just trying to figure each out. In the second set we were able to find their weaknesses and play well. I think we didn't play well in the later sets, they were adjusting to us and we needed to just adjust more ourselves and find things that were going to work. They are a good team and they are able to react to what we through at them, so we have to be able to throw different things at them."

What the team can take away from the game:
"We are a team ready to win a championship, and this is our practice for it. Just because we were not able to be them today, doesn't mean that we aren't going to take away from it and not get better at it. This is just one step along the way for the Big Sky Championship."

Kortney Lockey

Importance of third set:
"I don't necessarily think the third set is extremely important. If you look at last night and we came back in the fourth and fifth set even after dropping the third. We try to go into every set as a new set and not letting the last one effect you.:

Facing size of CSU:
"We talked about being creative in our attack. When you look across the line yeah they are big at 6-6 and 6-3, but that doesn't mean you can find other ways to score. That's why we found a way in the second set to find ways to be creative and find ways to score, with shots, tip, and throws stuff like that."

Lyndsey Oates

Overall thoughts on the game:
"There were some highs and lows through the match and we were unable to sustain it. I think that was the overall picture of the match. We just went in and out of aggressive serving, and when we were serving aggressive that was in our favor and at times we backed down. We did the same thing offensively, we were purposeful or just passive. I thought in set two we had purpose and were able to script it from the bench a little bit, and then in sets three and four they were able to shut us down offensively.

How the match can help moving forward:
"I see glimpses of a championship team. I saw pieces of the team tonight that I saw in 2012 when we had an excellent team. We are going have to piece things together and execute a few different things to win a championship. We are not there yet, but we have the capability to work on it and be there in the next month, two months. I think we have the talent and as we get healthy I think we will have the depth."

What's Next?
The Bears hit the road for the first time this year when they head to Houston, Texas for the weekend. The team will play three matches while in Texas, starting on Friday against North Florida at 3:30 pm.
UNC will return home next on September 7 when the host Denver at 7 pm.