LAS VEGAS Mistakes. Nothing else could explain the San Diego State women’s volleyball team’s loss to Brigham Young Friday night in the semifinals of the Western Athletic Conference postseason tournament in Las Vegas. SDSU led in most of the statistical columns except the most important one: the win column.
The Aztecs outhit (.151 to .130) and outkilled (74 to 57) BYU, but also had more errors (42 to 35), which ultimately made the difference.
After coming out firing on all cylinders in the first game, the Aztecs (21-10) just couldn’t come up with the big play to put the Cougars (24-6) away and lost 15-9, 13-15, 13-15 and 11-15.
“We didn’t attack the the ball very well,” SDSU head coach Mark Warner said. “I don’t really know what to say about that … (The Cougars) made the plays when they had to, and we didn’t.”
The Red and Black fell behind 0-1 in game one, but scored three of the next four points to take a 4-2 lead. With the score knotted at four, the Aztecs scored eight straight points, with Andrea Clark serving.
They used a combination of two Martina Vitkova kills and four consecutive blocks, two by Nicole Curtis and one each by Ginger Ernest and Vitkova, to literally stun BYU and force it to take two timeouts.
The Cougars scored five of the next six points, but the damage was done. Two more blocks by Curtis, who led the team with 12, enabled SDSU to grab the opening game15-9.
Giving up 6-3, 9-4 and 13-9 leads in the third game was the backbreaker for the Aztecs, however.
Each time SDSU stretched its lead, BYU called a timeout to set up successful kills to give it the serve. The Aztecs’ service errors and missed kill attempts kept giving the serve back to the Cougars, who then took advantage of it.
“(SDSU’s) errors killed them at crucial times tonight,” BYU head coach Elaine Michaelis said. “We were fortunate enough to take advantage of them.”
Two kills, a net violation against the Aztecs and two aces by the Cougars’ Amy Steele put BYU up 14-13. And besides an Ernest kill to momentarily stop the bleeding, another SDSU missed kill attempt gave the Cougars the victory in game three.
However, the Aztecs showed tremendous character and heart, even if they didn’t play their best game. Take the second game, for example.
Down 3-8 and 6-11 in game two, SDSU didn’t pull an Andre Agassi and tank the rest of the game. Down 6-11, it deployed a combination of Vitkova kills and Curtis blocks to tie the score at 12-12.
With the score at 13-12 in favor of the BYU, the NCAA representatives in attendance got a good glimpse of the tremendous talent in the WAC as both teams traded miraculous digs and thunderous kill attempts. However, the Cougars got away with an illegal double touch by a player to get a sideout and force the Aztecs to use a timeout.
Another blown call cost SDSU at the end of game two as a kill that was tipped and went out of bounds was ruled out, giving serve back to BYU, which led 14-13. Clark then was given a misconduct yellow card warning for arguing the call. SDSU subsequently missed on a kill attempt after receiving serve. Game two to the Cougars.
“We felt the call was a pretty easy call to make,” Ernest said. “I didn’t think it was a fair call. It was pretty hard to accept.”
Now, the Aztecs had to accept a 1-1 tie instead of being up 2-0 and having BYU by the jugular.
