The Davis Women’s volleyball winning streak comes to an end on game five
By MEGAN JOSEPH — sports@theaggie.org
On Oct. 5, the Aggies had their first devastating loss of the season against the Cal Poly Mustangs. Coming off of their four-game winning streak, the Aggies were favored to win the game, but just could not pull it off.
As captivating as it was to see the Aggies play and win the first set, the Mustangs made a big comeback and won the remaining three sets. This drops the Aggies to four wins and one loss and brings the Mustangs up to four wins and one loss.
“We need to learn from tonight and do a better job preparing for matches like this in the future,” said Coach Dan Conners to UC Davis Athletics.
Conners expressed complete faith in his team to make a comeback this season and keep up their high seasonal winning streak despite the low statistics from the game.
The Aggies did their best, but only put up a hitting percentage of 0.205 and made close to 25 attacking errors. With this hopefully just being an off game for the team we should expect to see a much more driven and better performance in their next game.
In the first set, the Aggies were down a substantial number of points, until the offense had a three kill streak that gave the Aggies the advantage over the San Luis Obispo team and led them to winning the set 25 to 23.
After that, the Mustangs turned the game around and won the following three sets. The Aggies tried to hang on and had some good hits. Nevertheless, the Mustangs played a better game.
Besides the tremendous loss, third-year Olivia Utterback had a very impactful performance with her seasonal best: 18 kills. This marks her best game of the season with a 0.351 hitting percentage which is very hard for most players to even come close to.
Utterback earned a double-double — when a player gets a double-digit number in two out of five categories for individual play — in the game due to her 10 digs and 18 kills. Utterback has definitely started a new season rhythm so far with all the new impressive statistics she has been putting up.
Another third-year player, Amara Aimfua, displayed her well-rounded abilities with her thirteen kills and 0.205 hitting percentage. Aimfua used her knowledge of the game to make calculated hits against the team and help the Aggies win one of their sets.
Continuing her season as libero, third-year Julia Ng stayed very calm and stable in her position and helped the Aggies by diving to get 16 digs and assisting four times. The team could not have held on for as long as they did without the help of Ng.
Finding her place in the team, first-year Mia Starr led the total number of assists in the game with an outstanding 19 assists and six digs. Starr has definitely bonded with the team and found her rhythm.
With all of this team’s talent, we should expect to see a new fiery Aggie offense and defense in future games.
Written by: Megan Joseph — sports@theaggie.org
