Kenzie Jones, Sports Editor, @KenzieScribbler
In their second game of the BYU Invitational Utah Valley falls to 5th-ranked Washington Saturday morning. The finals set scores are 25-14, 25-29, 25-23. Both teams entered the game today pumped up from wins in their first matches of the tournament Friday night. In the end the Huskies proved to be the dominant team of the match and find themselves in position to take the tournament title.
Washington took the court with their games faces on and ready to destroy and the first set showcased them doing just that. Kaleigh Nelson picked up the first two kills of the day for the Huskies to kick start the team with their early lead of 7-3. The Wolverines tried to create a rally comeback and managed to earn three straight points cut the lead, but it wasn’t enough as UW put away two more points from opposite pins for 9-6. When the score hit 11-6 UVU took a time out for a pep talk by Coach Atoa which proved to be only slightly effective as they took another time out after the score became 18-10. The time proved to be more of an advantage for the Huskies as right out of the break they made a triple block to double UVU’s score. The set was quickly finished up with a kill by Lianna Sybeldon bringing the score to 25-14.
The second set showed Washington taking a quick lead of 9-3. Utah Valley did manage to bounce back with three in a row, but the run was stopped just before the team found the grove of a rally. Even after pulling within one point on a Husky error and a Wolverine block the score still showed in favor of UW, 15-13. The teams traded side-outs and UVU found themselves with in one of UW again but the Huskies converted from the left, 23-19. From there it was quick work for Washington to end the set at 25-19.
In the third UVU look to be finding a niche when they scored the first two points and even managed to crate a three-point run took take the lead at 2-5. It was a short lived glory for the Wolverines as UW’s red-shirting freshman Carly DeHoog tied the set at 6-6 with a kill on her first swing of the day. From there Washington stayed in the lead even after two more timeouts called by Utah Valley. The set ended with a score of 25-23 showing that the Wolverines where able to fight against the Huskies stronger each set, but just ran out of time to build a win.
The lady Wolverines will take the court for their last game of the tournament tonight at 7:00p.m. MT, facing off against the hosts, BYU.
