Cowgirls come up short again

By Richard Anderson
Wyoming Sports.org

In college basketball, it’s a 40-minute game. On the volleyball court, the team that scores the final point gets the win.

For the young Wyoming volleyball team, Thursday night was case of doing just about everything better but scoring points; San Diego State had the edge at the end, winning in five games, 25-20, 22-25, 13-25, 25-13 and 16-14.

The heartbreaking defeat was the fourth time in Mountain West Conference matches that the Cowgirls have taken it to the limit, but come out on the short end of five-set matches. Two of those five-set losses have been to the Aztecs.

“Realistically it was about us; we didn’t handle the pressure situations of the match,“ Wyoming assistant coach Jill Stucky said. ‘As our team matures, we plan on those situations going our way. Right now with this team, we’re going to continue to work on pressure situations, so the next time we get into that position, the match will go our way.”

What made it more difficult to swallow for Wyoming, 1-11 in MWC play and 11-165 overall, is the Cowgirls had a 2-1 edge in the match before dropping the fourth game, and then led 13-10 in the fifth set before the Aztecs, 5-7, 11-12, rallied in the end.

“We just have to finish,” said Wyoming junior outside hitter Lauren Whitney, who had 19 kills and 23 digs in the game. “We get there and we’re fighting, competing, competing and in the end we don’t finish. That’s what we need to work on, finishing the game.”

The one area in which the Cowgirls fell short statistically was on the block, where the Aztecs held a commanding 16-7 edge in total team blocks. SDSU had one solo block and 30 block assists, to just one solo for the Cowgirls and 12 assisted blocks.

Part of that was due to Wyoming losing 6-foot-4 freshman middle blocker Camille Coffman on the first set of the game. Coffman appears to have a high ankle sprain and her availability is in question.

Freshman Makenzie Bartsch, who was seen more and more playing time as of late, filled in admirable, but Coffman’s void was felt.

Stucky said the actual move in the game was made at setter, as junior Barbara Lasic, who had been out with a sprained ankle herself, played the rest of the way and finished with 55 set assists.

“That was the main adjustment that we made,“ Stucky said. “We lost a huge block that we really could have used. At the same time, Barbara is back and healthy; she ran a pretty good offense.”

After two competitive sets to begin the match, the Cowgirls came out on absolute fire in the third frame led by the hard hitting of Whitney, freshman Jodi Purdy and junior JennaRae Jester. The Cowgirls led 16-3 and were never challenged.

That momentum, however, was fleeting, as the Aztecs controlled the fourth game although Wyoming made a nice run to close the gap.

In the end, the ball didn’t fall the Cowgirls way.

“Everything adds up. One to six is just as important as 18-25,” Whitney said. “We have to push through the whole game and not just be satisfied with 20.”

Purdy led all hitters with 21 kills, while Jester added 15 kills and hit .750 with no errors. As a team, the Cowgirls hit .218 and had 65 kills to 56 for SDSU. The Aztecs were paced by Andrea Hannasch with 12 kills and Hannah Evans with 11. Hannasch was also big at the net, with nine assisted blocks.

The Cowgirls will look to bounce back Saturday at 7:30 p.m. when they host Air Force.

“We’ll just keep plugging along. We’ll be back here on Saturday,” Whitney said.

Jester earns academic honors
For the first time in her career, Jester was selected on Thursday to the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District VII Second Team. Jester, who has earned a 3.96 cumulative grade-point average in business administration, was one of six individuals to earn Second Team honors.

The ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District team is a part of the Academic All-America program. Student-athletes are selected in voting by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA). CoSIDA District VII is made up of the states of Wyoming, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota and the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.

To qualify, a student-athlete must have achieved a minimum of 3.30 cumulative grade-point average, must be at least a sophomore and must have participated in at least 50 percent of her team’s matches.

An Academic All-MWC and Scholar Athlete selection, Jester has played in all 27 matches and 104 sets this season and for her career 57 matches and 206 sets. Going into Thursday's match, she was averaging a team- leading .257 (191-76-448) hitting percentage and 1.13 blocks per set, while adding 1.93 kills and 2.81 points per set. She currently ranks fourth overall in blocks and fifth in MWC matches in that category.