The Wolverines’ bittersweet battle

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After a quick weekend to the West Coast, the women’s volleyball team took a hard hit as they left Bakersfield, Calif. with a bittersweet 1-1 record at the Roadrunner Classic.

The Wolverines swept out Maryland-Eastern Shore in three sets on Friday as senior Erica Nish lead the match with nine kills, two aces and two blocks.

“We had some really good points and some really bad points,” Nish said. “We had times where we really pulled together and had a really good comeback one of the games.”

Although the Wolverines picked up a victorious sweep on Friday, a devastating loss kept the team from keeping their heads up high.

Utah Valley dropped a close five-set battle against CSU Bakersfield Saturday night as the Roadrunners took the win.

“I think that our weakness was finishing,” Nish said. “We needed that push and we couldn’t provide that consistently.”

Due to the touchy subject that the game was, Nish was unable to find the words to describe that “push” that the team needed.

The match was kept hot and their momentum was firing as the sets continually went back and forth keeping both teams on their toes.

Utah Valley took the first set with a close 25-22 match point. They kept the momentum up until CSU Bakersfield came back to take the second set with a 16-25. Each team took the next two sets leading them into a fifth and final set. It just wasn’t enough for the Wolverines to bounce back to the finish and take the win as the Roadrunners finished them off with a 10-15 set.

“I expected us to be better over the weekend,” said head coach Sam Atoa. “There were certain areas of the game that we struggled in and that’s some of the areas we’ve been focusing on this week to try and be better.”

Even though the Wolverines may be down, their heads are held high as they continue to improve and play to their best ability in upcoming matches.

“We’re hoping to execute better and do a lot more things defensively and offensively better,” Atoa said. “That will help us win more ball games and win more points that we are capable of doing.”

The Wolverines bounce back to Happy Valley as they prepare to compete in Las Vegas against UNLV.

“The most important thing is for us to get better to compete for the conference,” Atoa said. “We’ve got a few more losses at this time of the season than what we expected to be but we can still accomplish all the goals that we’ve set.”

UVU starts conference play on Oct. 4 against Texas-Pan American and continues its month-long 12-match stretch on the road.