SALT LAKE CITY — In her first match as a Ute, freshman Morgan Odale made an impressive debut with a double-double (12 kills and 11 digs) to help the University of Utah women's volleyball team defeat UC Davis in its season-opener, 3-1 (25-22, 25-23, 16-25, 25-23), on Friday night at Crimson Court.
Utah (1-0) held a 10-7 edge in blocks over UC Davis in the first match of the Utah Classic.
The Utes displayed a well-rounded offensive attack as three players — Odale, Karolina Bartkowiak and Sarah Collette — registered 12 kills apiece.
Collette registered a .367 hitting percentage, with 12 kills on 30 attempts and only one error. Bartkowiak committed four errors on 27 attempts for a .296 hitting percentage, and Odale took a team-high 48 swings with errors for a .125 mark.
Defensively, libero Keisha Fisher turned in her 61st career double-figures dig match with a team-high 12 digs. Junior middle blocker Danielle Killpack posted a match-high six blocks.
The Utah Classic continues today as UC Davis takes on Utah State at 1 p.m. The Utes and Utah State square off at 7 p.m.
BYU LOSES TO NO. 6 ILLINOIS: At Champagne, Ill., in the first game of the season for the BYU women's volleyball team, the Cougars fell to No. 6 Illinois 3-1 (27-25, 9-25, 16-25, 16-25) in the Illini Classic.
"We battled and played very aggressively," BYU head coach Shay Goulding said. "But there were too many moments where we played tentatively. It was good to get one set under our belts — we played very clean, were aggressive on the serve and were virtually error free. We're ready to continue on tomorrow and steal a match from any given team."
Junior Christie Carpenter led the way on the attack with seven kills, while senior Stephanie Snow and true freshman Taeja Afalava tallied six kills each. Senior setter Kiana Rogers chalked up 25 assists, as well as leading the team on digs with 15.
Libero Kendalyn Hartsock added 10 digs. Sophomore Nicole Warner led on the block with four while she, Rogers, and Afalava each had two service aces on the night.
Having an impressive breakout night for the Fighting Illini was Colleen Ward, who tallied 19 kills on a .382 clip, nine service errors and five digs.
Starting out the season on the court for BYU was Christina Measom, Rogers, Carpenter, Warner, Snow, Afalava and Hartsock as libero.
The Cougars jumped out to an 8-2 lead early in the first set with two kills by Snow and a service ace by Measom. The Cougars led the entire set until the Illini posted a 5-0 run to knot the score at 24. A kill from Afalava put the Cougars up by one, then they gave away a service error to tie the score at 25. An Illini attack error and a service ace by Afalava gave the Cougars their first set of the season.
While the Cougars started out the second set with kills from freshman Coriann Clark and Carpenter at 2-1, Illinois then posted a 12-0 run with Ward behind the serving line. She earned eight service aces, with five in a row before a service error to give BYU its third point (3-13). The Cougars continued to play down, only coming out with nine total points for the set (9-25).
"We did everything we could to adjust to her serving," Goulding said.
"It was a legitimately good jump serve and she got into the groove. We stopped her the rest of the night, but it was difficult to bounce back from that deficit."
Back-and-forth play in the beginning of the third set helped the Cougars gain their confidence back. After a tied score at 7-7, Illinois had a 5-0 run, but was followed by a 4-0 Cougar run to bring the score to 11-12. A late 5-0 Illini run ended the set 25-16.
The fourth set was similar to the third, with the Fighting Illini chipping away at the score little by little, and a 4-0 run late in the set helped them win the set and the match, 25-16 and 3-1.
"We had a lot of inexperience on the court," said Goulding. "At any given time, we had three or four girls on the court with no game-time experience. But we have a lot to work with this year and we will continue to improve."
The Cougars will next play Middle Tennessee today at 11 a.m. MT and South Carolina at 3:30 p.m. MT.
UTAH VALLEY LOSES TO NEVADA: At Columbia, Mo., the Utah Valley University women's volleyball team began its 2010 season Friday afternoon with a 3-1 loss to Nevada at the Missouri Tiger Invitational with scores of 20-25, 25-14, 21-25 and 22-25.
"We got off to a very slow start in the first set, but I felt that we did some great things to even it out in the second set," UVU head coach Sam Atoa added. "However, we just didn't do enough of it to win the match.
"We've got some young kids out on the court that are still trying to figure some things out, but overall it was a good start. We will learn from this match and we expect to keep getting better."
In the losing effort, junior Chelsey Heaps had a big match as she led the way for UVU with 17 kills and a hitting percentage of .419. Behind her was senior Kayli Doxey, who finished with eight kills and a team-high 12 digs. In her UVU debut, freshman Brookelyn Campbell had a solid match, as she picked up a team-high 29 assists while also adding eight digs and five kills.
Nevada (1-0) came out and took control of the match early, as it led 7-0 in the first set and went on to win it by the score of 25-20. The Wolverines (0-1) then quickly answered in the second set as they managed to win it by a commanding 25-14 score. With the score tied at 6-all, UVU scored 19 of the final 27 points to secure the set. UVU picked up a match-high 13 kills in the set and hit at a percentage of .370 as a team.
In a very tightly contested third set, the Wolf Pack responded to pull out a 25-21 advantage. In that set, Nevada scored a team-high 17 kills and hit at a percentage of .344.
In the fourth and final set of the match, UVU had leads of 10-6 and 16-13 but couldn't hold on late, as Nevada battled back to win the set and the match, 25-22. The Wolverines will play two more contests at the Tiger Invitational today, taking on Maryland at 9 a.m. (MT) and host Mizzou at 5:30 p.m. (MT).
WEBER STATE LOSES TO IDAHO: At Pullman, Wash., sophomore outside hitters Bethany Wray and Emily Jones each had 15 kills, but it wasn't quite enough to power the Weber State University women's volleyball team to a victory in its season-opener against Idaho.
Wray added 12 digs and had three service aces for the Wildcats, who fell 3-1 (25-27, 25-16, 25-18, 25-22) to the University of Idaho on Friday night in the opening match of the Nike Cougar Invitational at Bohler Gym on the campus of Washington State University.
Junior libero Nina Blake had 16 digs for Weber State, while senior setter Kim Lissinna notched 30 assists and seen digs for the Wildcats (0-1).
As a team, WSU had 44 kills, but the 'Cats hit just .119 and had 14 service errors.
Weber State will face host Washington State at 11 a.m. today, followed by a match against UC Irvine at 5:30 p.m. to wrap up the tournament.
WESTMINSTER WINS FIRST TWO MATCHES: At Salt Lake City, the Westminster women's volleyball team got the season started in exciting fashion by picking up two wins at the Tournament of Champions. Westminster opened the season with a 3-0 sweep of Daemen College. In the nightcap, Westminster rallied from down two sets to win a five-set thriller over No. 16 College of Idaho.
Six different players recorded multiple kills in the opener with Daemen. Clotile Harris led all players with her 14 kills and .667 hitting efficiency. As a team, Westminster hit .275 in the match while posting five blocks and 38 digs. The Griffins' team also added six service aces en route to the 25-16, 25-22, 25-16 victory.
The College of Idaho match was a whole different story. After dropping the first two sets, 30-28 and 25-20, Westminster stormed all the way back and won the final three sets, 25-15, 29-27, 16-14. The match featured 42 ties and 16 lead changes and had three sets go into extra points. The teams combined for 129 kills, 137 digs and 18.5 blocks.
Westminster finished the match with 66 kills while hitting .222. The Griffins recorded 11 service aces to go with 66 digs. They got back into the match by hitting .345 and .282 in sets three and four, respectively.
Harris was dominant through much of the match and finished with 25 kills in just her second collegiate match. She wasn't alone, however, as Kenzie Mitchell and Ashley Marchant chipped in 12 and 10 kills, respectively. Marchant just missed a double-double with her nine digs, while Mitchell added four service aces. Emily Atkinson distributed 53 assists, and freshman libero Kyndall Kordakis racked up 21 digs.
Westminster will face No. 9 Azusa Pacific in the final match of pool play today at noon. The semifinal matches are scheduled for 2 and 4 p.m., with the tournament's championship match slated for 6 p.m.