Nov. 17, 2007
SALT LAKE CITY - San Diego State concluded its 2007 regular season Saturday evening as it dropped a three-game (30-13, 30-16, 30-25) decision to the Utah Utes in Salt Lake City. With the loss, the Aztecs fall to 12-15 overall and finish 4-12 in the Mountain West Conference.
The SDSU offense was unable to get on track from the outset of the match, totaling just 30 kills over the three games. Redshirt freshman Hannah Evans led the Aztecs with nine kills while adding two aces, a pair of digs and a block. Freshman teammate Lauren Salisbury added five kills and three blocks as the twosome accounted for half of the team's kills on the night.
Utah (13-14, 9-7 MWC) got a match-high 13 kills from Kate Robison with fellow Utes Whitney Webb and Lori Baird contributing 12 and 10 kills respectively.
The Utes led in every offensive category as they doubled SDSU's kill total with 60 and also topped the final stat sheet in attack percentage (.393 to .105), assists (53-28), service aces (8-3), digs (46-39) and blocks (7-5).
Trailing 8-5 in the opening game, San Diego State saw Utah run off nine consecutive points behind four kills by Webb to give the home side a 17-5 advantage from which SDSU could not recover. Webb led all players with seven kills in the contest while no Aztec had more than a pair.
SDSU stayed close in game two and trailed by just three at 19-16. However, Utah scored the next 11 straight points to win the game in convincing fashion. Five kills, three service aces and three Aztec errors contributed to the Ute scoring run.
The third game was the closest of the three as San Diego State led most of the way by a point or two. Utah finally knotted the score at 25-all, then scored five in a row to close out the match. The final five points of the contest included kills by Baird, Robison and Karolina Bartkowiak plus two Aztec attack errors.
SDSU's eight-place finish in the final MWC standings means it will face Air Force in the opening match of next week's conference tournament in Las Vegas. That contest will take place on Wednesday, Nov. 21, at 3:30 p.m. (PST) at UNLV's Cox Pavilion.