BYU Beats Aztecs in Volleyball

The San Diego State women’s volleyball team went from hot to cold Saturday night, losing to BYU, 7-15, 15-5, 3-15, 15-8, 15-13, in front of a crowd of 632 at Peterson Gym.

The loss puts the Aztecs (15-9, 2-3) in a must-win situation in remaining Western Athletic Conference games to keep alive chances for a postseason bid. The victory puts BYU (16-6, 4-1) in a tie with New Mexico for first place in the WAC.

“I think we’re not going to give up and I hope the girls don’t give up,” Aztec Coach Rudy Suwara said. “We need to finish big to go into postseason play. The WAC is a very tough conference.”

San Diego State was favored going into Saturday’s match after the Aztecs on Thursday handily defeated Utah and BYU lost to New Mexico.

“We’ve been playing inconsistently, as the match shows tonight,” BYU Coach Elaine Michaelis said. “We were very concerned coming here. It’s a real tough road trip with New Mexico then San Diego State.”

The Aztecs were in a position several times in the second and fifth games to take over, but inexperience at the setter position took its toll.

“In the last game we just got stuck on 12,” Suwara said. “We needed to hit the ball better. Our hitting percentage (.173) wasn’t very good.

“The difference was when they had a bad pass, they still had a good set. When we had a bad pass, we had a bad set. There was a senior setter (Carla Gee) against our freshman setter (Pam Hope) and it showed. We had a string of setting errors in the second game.”

One advantage BYU had was the international experience its outside hitter, Tea Nieminen, a junior from Finland, contributes. Nieminen dominated for BYU with 24 kills. Teammate Marinda Ashman added 16.

“They had someone (Nieminen) to put the ball away, and tonight we didn’t,” Suwara said.

Although Suwara said the outside hitting wasn’t as consistent as he hoped, the duo of Angela Martin and Gracie Schutt had 18 and 14 kills, respectively. Shannon Mathew also had 14. Martin, a senior, is the 11th best hitter in the nation, averaging 4.7 kills a game.

“Shannon served and played the back row consistently,” Suwara said. “Other people played hot and cold,” Suwara said.