MATCH STATS
- Utah defeats Arizona, 3-1 (25-18, 25-23, 23-25, 25-23)
- Utah improves to 15-3; Arizona drops to 8-8
- Tucson, Arizona
- Attendance: 1781
- Box Score
TUCSON, Arizona – The Utes defeated the Wildcats Friday afternoon in a PAC 12 Conference matchup in the McKale Center. Utah is now 6-1 in conference play, and Arizona drops to 2-5.
Utah hit .156 on the match, with a .256 clip in the first. They held Arizona to a .144 hitting percentage. The Wildcats out-blocked the Utes 10-8.
Utah setters, Bailey Choy and Camryn Machado, dished out 20 assists each, and combined for 24 digs and one kill. On the other side of the net, Julia Patterson ran the offense for Arizona and notched 42 assists and 13 digs for a double-double to go with two digs and one block assist.
Three Utah players posted double-figure kills with Adora Anae totaling 14 kills on a .102 clip. Carly Trueman recorded 11 kills, hitting .194, and Berkeley Oblad put away 10 with a .381 hitting percentage.
Arizona had just one player with double-figure kills. Kendra Dahlke put away 17 kills on a .113 clip and added seven digs and six blocks.
Both teams will continue with PAC 12 Conference play Sunday as Utah travels to Arizona State and Arizona will host Colorado.
PRESS RELEASES
Courtesy of Utah Athletics
TUCSON, Ariz. – The No. 13-ranked Utah Utes (15-3, 6-1) downed the Arizona Wildcats (8-8, 2-5) in four sets (25-18, 25-23, 23-25, 25-23) Friday night at the McKale Center in Tucson, Ariz.
Utah’s four-set victory marks the first time ever that the Utes have won in Tucson. The Utes snapped a 10-game losing streak when facing the Wildcats on the road. Friday night’s win also snapped Utah’s six-game losing streak against the Wildcats, with the last win coming back on Oct. 27, 2013, in Salt Lake City, which was also a four-set win.
The Utes jumped out to a quick start in Tucson, winning six of the first seven points. Utah tallied four kills, along with a service ace from Berkeley Oblad to take the early lead, 6-1. Leading 10-7, Utah put together a 6-0 run to jump out to a 16-7 lead midway through the frame. Trailing the Utes 20-12, Arizona went on a 3-0 run to trail 20-15 and force a Utah timeout, but the Utes stopped Arizona’s momentum and later earned set point from a kill by Adora Anae and would take the set, 25-18, after a service error by Arizona.
Leading 8-7 in the second set, Utah scored three straight points and forced Arizona to call its final timeout trailing 11-7. Utah pushed the lead to 14-9, but Arizona went on a 6-1 run to square the set up at 15-15. Carly Trueman would record a kill to give the Utes a 20-17 lead, but the Wildcats outscored the Utes 4-1 late in the set to tie the frame 21-21. Tied 23-23, Utah registered set point from an Oblad kill and took the second set, 25-23, off an attack error from Arizona.
An Anae kill opened the third set, but it was Arizona who built a 5-1 lead early in the set and forced Utah to use its first timeout. A Utah 3-0 run later tied the set, 9-9, and neither the Utes nor the Wildcats were able to build any separation for most of the set. Later tied 19-19, a kill and a service ace from Oblad, along with a kill from Lauga Gauta gave Utah the lead 22-19, which forced an Arizona timeout. Out of the timeout, Gauta recorded another kill to help the Utes lead 23-19, but Arizona rallied late in the third set and scored six straight points to take the frame, 25-23.
Tied 10-10 in the fourth set, Utah scored four straight points to build a lead midway through the set, 14-10. An Anae kill held the Ute lead at 17-13, but Arizona went on a 4-0 run to tie the set at 17-17. The Wildcats scored three straight points later in the set to take the lead 22-21, but a service error followed by a service ace from Camryn Machado gave the Utes the lead back at 23-22. An Arizona hitting error gave Utah match point and an Oblad kill would clinch the road win for Utah, taking the fourth set 25-23.
Three Utes recorded double-digit kills on the evening with Adora Anae recording 14 kills, Carly Trueman notching 11 kills, and Berkeley Oblad adding in 10 kills for the Utes.
Bailey Choy recorded her eighth double-double of the season, recording 20 assists and a season-high 15 digs. Camryn Machado also added in 20 assists and nine digs for Utah.
Shannon Scully totaled 14 digs, while Brianna Doehrmann also had a double-digit dig effort, finishing with 11 digs. Also helping Utah defensively, Anae totaled nine digs, while Tawnee Luafalemana recorded five total blocks and Dani Barton totaled four blocks.
Utah will close out the road trip facing Arizona State on Sunday at 2 p.m. MT in Tempe, Ariz.
Courtesy of Arizona Athletics
TUCSON, Ariz. — No. 13 Utah volleyball defeated Arizona in four sets on Friday evening in McKale Center (25-18, 25-23, 23-25, 25-23).
The Wildcats hung tough with the 13th-ranked Utes, including storming back with six straight points in the third set to win. The Cats fell by two points in both the second and fourth sets.
“There were some opportunities that we didn’t take advantage of against a really good team,” said head coach Dave Rubio. “We put ourselves in position almost every set, except for the first set. It’s a little frustrating that we didn’t play a little cleaner. Game four we missed a serve, got aced, hitting error. At 22-21 we were up and they we just kind of error-ed ourselves out of the last set.”
The loss ended a six-match winning streak in the series for Arizona, which upset No. 17 Utah in McKale Center a year ago.
Kendra Dahlke led the Wildcats with 17 kills, marking the ninth time, and sixth time in UA’s last seven matches, that she has led the Cats in kills. She also tallied a career-most six blocks on the nights, including two solo efforts.
Arizona’s defense was excellent on the night. UA outblocked Utah 10-8 and had 70 digs in the match. The Cats held Utah to .156 hitting, well under its .285 clip on the season entering the match. Makenna Martinrecorded UA’s first 20-dig effort of the season; her 21 digs mark a new career high for the libero.
Julia Patterson posted 42 assists in the match and paired them with 13 digs for her eighth double-double of 2017. She is one off the Pac-12 lead.
Candice Denny continued her torrid start to Pac-12 play. The freshman, who entered Friday fourth in the league with a .409 hitting percentage in Pac-12 matches, had seven kills on .500 hitting in the match. She added four blocks.
McKenzie Jacobson provided Arizona a huge spark off the bench. The redshirt senior, who played the final three sets of the match, had eight kills on .500 hitting with three blocks.
“I think there are a lot of positives,” said Rubio. “I think there are a lot of really good things that came out of tonight. We were down 0-2, came back, really fought our way back. Lost a tough game two, which we kind of gave that set away. We didn’t let go of the rope. We kind of hung in there. Really competed to get ourselves to win game three. Game four, we again put ourselves in position. I thought we blocked well. We did a great job defensively. A lot of really good things. It’s just we’re not steady and consistent enough from one point in the rally to the next point in the rally. That’s the inconsistency that plagued us tonight. A lot of things that normally plague us, came back to us.”
With the loss, Arizona fell to 8-8, 2-5 Pac-12 on the season. The 13th-ranked Utes improved to 15-3, 6-1 Pac-12.
The Utes took the opening set, 25-18, outhitting Arizona .256-.156 in the process. Both teams had 21 digs in the first set; UA was led in that department by Kimberly Gutierrez, who had seven off the bench.
Utah carried that momentum into an early lead in the second, but UA used a 6-1 run to turn a 14-9 Utah lead into a 15-15 tie. The two teams traded runs the remainder of the set. After Arizona tied the set at 23 apiece, Utah scored the final two points to win the set 25-23.
In the third, the Utes appeared poised to sweep the Cats. They erased Arizona’s hot start (6-1) and went up 23-19, two points from the sweep. Arizona, however, scored the set’s final six points to force a fourth set.
In a back-and-forth fourth set, Arizona used a late surge to take a 22-21 lead, but following a Ute timeout, Utah scored four of the final five points to win the set, 25-23, to take the match.
Up Next: The Cats wrap up a four-match homestand on Sunday at 1 p.m. vs. Colorado.
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