BOISE – There wasn’t much to say about it.
Boise State senior middle blocker Chey Day was already thinking about the rematch and junior right side hitter Paige Bartsch admitted to blocking out most of Tuesday’s match against Utah State at Bronco Gym.
But longtime Boise State volleyball coach Shawn Garus knew the 25-22, 25-21, 21-25, 25-20 four-set loss in a showdown between the Mountain West Conference’s top-2 teams had to be addressed.
The Broncos (9-8 overall, 5-2 MW) had won seven of their last eight games, including five of six in Mountain West play coming in. They still sit in second place.
“The message in the locker room was, ‘We have to talk about tonight because we’re all competitors and we want to find out what went wrong and know how we can fix it. ‘But when we leave the locker room, we’re onto San Jose,’” Garus said. “I believe this team has a great core group of leaders that are going to make sure that when we travel tomorrow, everybody’s gonna have their heads up.”
Bartsch and senior setter Noelani Helm each finished with double-doubles. Bartsch recorded her 17th double-figure kill match this season with a team-high 18 to go with 14 digs. She also had three block assists and a pair of aces. Helm, meanwhile, put up a team-high 36 assists and 12 digs for the Broncos, who had their two-set rally attempt come up a bit short.
Boise State appeared on its way to forcing a fifth and final set with a 14-10 advantage in the fourth. But the Aggies (13-5, 6-1) rattled off five straight points to take its first lead since the opening moments of the set. Freshman outside hitter Anabel Kotzakov tied it back up at 15 apiece with one of her nine kills on the night. But Utah State scored another four unanswered points for a 19-15 lead.
The Broncos did cut the deficit down to 20-19, but Adna Mehmedovic closed the door on another comeback attempt. She faked out several Boise State defenders by just lightly tapping it over the net for a kill to put the Aggies up 21-19. The Broncos never seriously threatened again.
“We just weren’t defending their hitters great,” Bartsch said. “We kind of got comfortable and we backed off a bit, which in volleyball, you got to hold the pressure.”
Boise State had trouble doing that for most of the night.
It let an 18-14 first-set lead slip away. The Broncos responded by tying it up at 21-21 after Utah State’s Leah Wilton-Laboy hit one into the net. But the Aggies won the next three points, capped by a Bronco net violation, on their way to taking the opening set.
“Letting that lead slip away was big,” Garus said. “We’d be on the court right now playing a fifth set if we could have closed out that first set. But I thought Utah State made more plays down the stretch.”
The Aggies didn’t need any dramatics in the second set. They led wire-to-wire and by as much as seven on two separate occasions to really put Boise State on its heels.
However, despite trailing 19-12 at one point in the third set, the Broncos avoided the sweep. With Bartsch serving down 21-17, they went on an 8-0 run after Utah State’s Kennedi Boyd sailed her hit well out of bounds.
It prompted sophomore Bella McGirr, who finished with 12 kills, to fall on the ground in celebration.
“Those are the moments that I live for,” said Day, who notched her first career double-digit kill match with 12 and hit a team-best .435%. “Obviously, we dug ourselves into a hole, but we did a really good job of staying focused and coming back and applying the pressure back to their side.”
Senior middle Annie Kaminski tallied seven kills and a team-high seven blocks, while freshman opposite side hitter Bridey O’Connor came off the bench for a season-high six kills for Boise State.
“I’m always very proud of Bridey. She has a soft spot in my heart,” Bartsch said. “She does a great job. She works hard every day at practice and she does a great job of taking advantage of the time she gets in for.”
The Broncos will visit San Jose State (11-8, 2-3) at 7 p.m. Thursday.