Colorado University Athletics
Colorado
Texas
OFFENSE SHINES IN SWEEP AT TEXAS
November 19, 2003 | Volleyball
CU, which has won six of its last seven matches, improves to 19-8 overall. With CU's win and
Recording their best performance since hitting .400 against
“Our setters (Allison Barnes and Ashley Nu'u) are doing a great job getting ball to our hitters and our hitters are getting the good shots,” CU head coach Pi'i Aiu said. “When you work hard, things start to pay off like winning on the road.”
Barnes and Nu'u, who have been splitting time over the past dozen matches, combined for 40 of CU's 49 assists. Barnes had 22 of them with four digs. Nu'u had 18 assists, six kills and six blocks.
The match certainly didn't start in CU's favor. UT's Bethany Howden had three service aces in the first eight points of game one building a 6-2 lead. The Longhorns increased their lead to 21-13 before the Buffs made their move. Santillana and Carr combined for 11 of CU's 18 game one kills and Carr tied the match at 28-28 with one of two service aces.
UT fought off one game point, and held one of its own at 30-29, but the Buffs scored the next three ending on a block of Howden by Austin Zimmerman and Nu'u. CU hit .306 in the game (18k-7e-36att), while
CU carried its game one momentum right into game two. The Buffs scored 11 of the first 16 points of the game and led by as many as 12 (20-8) before closing out the game at 30-24. Gerlach had five kills on five as the Buffs hit .400, as a team nailing 20 kills on 35 attacks with just six errors.
“Right now we are so determined,” Gerlach said. “It's crunch time and we can't allow ourselves to get in a hole. We're taking advantage of opportunities given to us and jumping on them.”
Howden led all players with 17 kills and six aces. Topic had 14 kills and 10 digs for the match.
