Utah came into Seattle looking to give the undefeated Huskies their first loss of the season, but Washington had other ideas as they swept the Utes in three straight sets.
In the first set, Utah went toe-to-toe with Washington, but ended up losing 25-22. A completely different story in the second set as Washington dominated and ended up winning the set 25-13. A controversial call by the referee at the end of the third set gave the match an ugly ending as the Huskies needed extra points to finish it off, 27-25.
The first set was sloppy, as each team struggled with their service game. Washington had five service errors and Utah had three service errors of its own. Neither team led by more than two points until the last point when the Huskies set the reigning AVCA Player of the Year Krista Vansant for the set-ending kill at 25-22.
Utah couldn’t carry over its effort into the second set as Washington got off to a 5-0 lead behind the serving of Cassie Strickland. She is one of only two jump servers the Utes have seen all season, the other being Samantha Bricio of USC, who totaled eight service aces against Utah.
“Their jump server scored five points and I think it put us in to a little bit of a tail spin,” head coach Beth Launiere said. “I thought that rattled us to be honest and we didn’t recover.”
The Utes were down 17-7 when Strickland came back to the service line. She got Washington on a 4-0 run this time around, before Utah eventually dropped the set by a dozen points.
Launiere made a change coming out of the intermission, bringing in Tess Sutton for Lea Adolph at libero.
Utah looked spend towards the end of the set, trailing 18-11 but the Utes didn’t give up as they managed a comeback to tie the match up at 24 apiece. With the score tied and the ball on Washington’s side, the referee whistled that the Huskies lifted the ball illegally and awarded the point to the Utes.
Quickly after that the referee changed his mind and said the point needed to be replayed.
“I don’t know if it was the right call or not,” Launiere said. “I just wasn’t happy that he changed just because (Washington) complained.”
Kalee Kirby registered a sneaky point by hitting the ball into the back row where nobody from Washington was even close to.. With Utah up 25-24 and looking to steal the set, the Huskies went back to Vansant for three straight kills, giving Washington the set and match.
Shelby Dalton led the Utes in kills with 11, but Chelsey Schofield-Olsen’s five kills in the third set were the key for Utah’s comeback.
Utah now heads east to Pullman to face Washington State on Sunday at 12:00 p.m. MT.
b.jasarevic@chronicle.utah.edu
@BenJasarevic
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