Katelyn Steffan (4) and Jacque Davisson (10) attempt a kill
The CSU Rams Volleyball (No. 24) team began their season Friday night, against Pepperdine (No. 26), one of their toughest opponents in the 2009-10 season. In all, the Rams didn’t have enough to hold off the more experienced Pepperdine Waves, as CSU lost their first match of the season, as it was the first home loss in 29 matches.
The Rams faithful came out strong to Defend the Fort on Friday, with a reported 3,876 fans in attendance at Moby Arena, but they were unable to root the Rams to victory, as CSU lost 25-23 in the first set, and were devastated in the next two sets 25-17 and 25-14.
CSU (0-1) started every set well early, jumping out to leads, but Pepperdine (1-0) proved too tough for the young Rams even though some young players provided good production including; Izzy Gaulia, Dana Cranston, and Megan Plourde. Plourde was granted a medical redshirt last season after only being able to participate in five sets in 2008, and she finally got her first start Friday and played well with a .308 hitting percentage for the match. Plourde tied sophomore Katelyn Steffan, junior Danielle Minch, and senior Tessa Nelson with six kills each, and she was second behind Steffan, who lead the team in hitting percentage at .333.
Overall though, the Rams averaged .163 hitting as a team, compared to the Waves’ .267, to which head coach Tom Hilbert said, “The stat sheet kind of tells the story tonight. No. 1, we didn’t pass well, and we didn’t hit as high a percentage as we needed to against a team as good as Pepperdine. But we will get better.”
In the first set, the Rams bolted out to a 14-10 lead, but then gave Pepperdine the next 11 of 15 points, to go down 21-18. And even with a wild comeback attempt, CSU lost 25-23. Sets two and three weren’t as competitive though, as the Rams could not hang with Pepperdine through long rallies, and lost 25-17 and 25-14.
In all, this was the first loss at home since No. 9 Utah won on Nov. 16, 2006 and it was the first sweep of the Rams at Moby Arena since Oct. 7, 2005 vs. BYU.
Coach Hilbert had some great advice after the game though, as he said, “This has to be a learning experience. We will play a lot of good teams in our non-conference schedule, and if we get obsessed with wins and losses, we will not improve. It has to be about improving with every match.” So now, this young CSU squad must forget this loss quickly and move on to play the Oregon State Beavers (1-0) at 4:30 pm today at Moby, who opened this Coors/Asics Classic with a win against Cal Poly. The Rams will finish the three-day tournament Sunday at 7:00 pm against the Cal Poly Mustangs.
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