Oct. 16, 2014
RENO, Nev. - San Diego State dug itself into a two-set hole and was unable to complete a comeback as it dropped a four-set decision to Nevada (14-25, 23-25, 25-18, 18-25) Thursday evening in Reno. The loss ended a short two-match win streak for the Aztecs who saw their record drop to 7-9 overall and 3-3 in the Mountain West.
The Wolf Pack, meanwhile, won for the first time in its last six outings to improve to 5-11 (2-4 MW). The win kept Nevada's string of wins over SDSU in Reno intact as the Aztecs have never won there in three attempts over the past three seasons.
Redshirt freshman Alexis Cage led San Diego State with 13 kills as she was the lone Aztec to end the night in double figure in kills. She also added 12 digs to complete her first career double-double with both numbers representing personal career highs as well.
Junior outside hitter Halle Aiken finished with seven ills (and eight digs) with no other Aztec registering more than five kills.
Libero Alexa Saba ended the night with 18 digs while teammate Chaiymin Steel added a dozen. Freshman Jensen Cunningham led all players with six blocks.
In the opening set San Diego State quickly found itself down 5-0 with three of those Nevada points coming on service aces by Lyndsey Anderson. The Aztecs closed to within three at 10-7, but that's as close as they could get as the Wolf Pack slowly built its lead en route to an 11-point win.
The second set was much more competitive as the teams were never separated by more than two points with the contest eventually being tied at 23-23. Nevada then got a kill from Tessa Lea'ea and a combination block by Anderson and Lea'ea capture the set and go up by two sets to none.
Set number three was tied early at 4-4 before SDSU took the lead for good by scoring four straight points on kills by Courtney Eckenrode and Cage. The Wolf Pack got back to within two twice with the latest coming at 15-13, but the Aztecs held on to their advantage the rest of the way. Aiken had five kills in the game as SDSU hit .429 as a team.
The fourth set saw the teams battle to an 11-11 score line before Nevada scored back-to-back points to take the lead for good. From that point the Aztecs were unable to get the offense going as they ended the contest with a -.091 hitting percentage. Nine of the Wolf Pack's final 14 points in the set came courtesy of SDSU attack errors as they closed out the match with a seven-point win.
San Diego State will now move over to San Jose where they will square off against San Jose State on Saturday, Oct., 18, at 6:00 p.m. at Spartan Gym.