Colorado
0-1
San Diego
1-0
Buffs Put Up Fierce Battle, But Fall In Opener To San Diego
August 28, 2015 | Volleyball
BOULDER — The No. 24 University of Colorado volleyball team started slow and despite picking up momentum at the end of the match, were unable to remedy the situation and fell 3-1 (25-20, 25-21, 22-25, 25-18) to a feisty University of San Diego team on Friday night to open the season at the Omni Hotels Colorado Volleyball Classic.
“Obviously, that's not the start we wanted for our home opener,” head coach Liz Kritza said. “I saw a lot of things that were good, but I also saw a lot of areas where we fell short tonight. In the huddle after the match, that is the most telling part of this team—nobody's okay with it, nobody's satisfied with it. First match of the year against an opponent that is as strong as San Diego is what we designed this schedule for. I think that some weaknesses were exposed tonight that we didn't adjust quickly enough to. And that's story of this match. I think we had opportunities in this match to capitalize, and where we could have won more points in particular rotations. We didn't execute it tonight.”
The Buffs were led by senior outside hitter Alexis Austin, who hammered 13 kills on 40 attempts. Sophomore Gabby Simpson was second for the Buffs with eight kills. In total, CU had 40 kills in the match and hit just .098. USD recorded 51 kills and hit .182. The Toreros had three players hit in double-digits. Canace Finley had 15 kills, Lisa Kramer tallied 11 and Merve Tanyel had 10 in the match.
Errors plagued the Buffs during the night with 28 attack errors and 11 service errors.
“We just need to play volleyball,” Austin said. “We had most of the errors and gave them those games.”
Defensively, the Buffs were led by senior Nicole Edelman and junior Cierra Simpson, who both picked up nine digs. CU had 36 in the effort, compared to 45 for USD. Tanyel had 12 digs for the Toreros.
USD had a 22-19 lead when the Buffs used their first timeout in the first set. The Toreros took the next point with a kill from Caila Stapleton, forcing CU to take its last timeout. USD took the following two (24-19) before Austin sided-out out for the Buffs with a kill, but it wasn't enough and the Buffs fell on the next point 25-20.
The Toreros got out to a quick start in the second set, taking an 11-6 lead to force the Buffs to take a timeout. Freshman Anna Pfefferle hammered a kill to get CU the ball back, but the Buffs couldn't slow down USD and the Toreros increased their lead to 16-9. The Buffs worked back into the set, cutting the lead to a pair at 23-21, which caused USD to spend a timeout. The Toreros took the first two points out of the break to win the set 25-21.
The Buffs were within one point of USD in the third set at 6-5 after three straight kills from freshman Naghede Abu, but USD sided-out and went up 15-10 before the Buffs took a timeout to slow down the Toreros' attack. The break worked and CU rallied back to even the score at 15-15. USD took the next two points, but the Buffs answered back with three of their own points, including two kills from Austin, to take an 18-17 lead. The Toreros took the next point after a quick timeout, evening the game at 18-18.
The two sides continued to play close despite USD taking a 21-19 advantage. CU called its final timeout, which paid off as the Buffs scored the next three points for a 22-21 lead. This time it was the Toreros who needed a timeout, but the Buffs took the first point out of the break (23-21). USD fought off the first CU set point (24-22), but Austin finished the set with a kill on the following point (25-23).
“We started blocking [in the third set], and then we actually started to force our middles a bit; nobody was really setting the middle on either side of the net,” Kritza said. “If you look at the stat sheet, we didn't get the ball enough to our quicker attackers; that's something we have to continue to work on. I think it's so much easier to throw the ball up to Alexis [Austin] and Gabby [Simpson] and Joslyn [Hayes], but part of our offense is to stay completely balanced, and to do that we have to have passing and have to stay in system.”
The fourth set was also very close and was tied 11-11 when the Toreros pulled ahead 15-11. CU took a timeout and followed it up with a pair of points, cutting the lead to two (15-13). USD again fought back and went up 19-13, but there was still fight for the Buffs as they closed the gap to two points at 20-18. USD took a timeout at that point and came back to finish the set, and the match, 25-18.
In earlier action on Friday, No. 9 Florida State defeated Oklahoma 3-1.
The Buffs will be back in action on Saturday with a pair of matches. They will face FSU at 12 p.m., which will also be CU's first match on Pac-12 Network this season. The final match of the Omni Classic for the Buffs is at 7:30 p.m. against OU.
“For us each player is accountable for any mistakes that they made,” Austin said. “We know what we need to work on personally, from the work put in during the preseason. So if we see a lot of that in the games, then we should know what we need to work on for the next game. Since it is such a quick turnaround, it's not like we can go practice it. All we can do is go home and rest, and come back tomorrow prepared to play.”
