The CU volleyball team was swept in three games, final scores 30-21, 32-30 and 30-22, on Saturday night by the No. 8 Texas Longhorns.
Texas freshmen Destinee Hooker, 6’4″, and Ashley Engle, 6’3″, caused problems for the Buffs all night.
“It was frustrating at times I think. They are definitely one of the taller teams in the Big 12. You have to find away around it,” Colorado middle blocker Lauren Schaefer said.
Texas jumped to an early lead in the first game, and the Buffs soon committed 10 errors on attack.
In game two, the Buffs came out strong. They jumped to an early 7-4 lead with the help of outside hitter Mallori Gibson. She had four kills in a row to jump-start the offense.
“It was really exciting for all of us to be on together. We’re all finally playing at the top of our level of our game. Getting those four straight really boosts (us),” Gibson said.
The Longhorns had the Buffs in a corner when they were leading 29-28 in game two. Texas almost scuffed its opportunity to win the game twice on two missed serves, but the Longhorns eventually put the Buffs away by taking advantage of some mistakes by CU.
“(Coach Aiu) told us that we came out strong in the second game; we were fighting. It just the little mistakes on our part that lost us the game,” Gibson said.
The Buffs couldn’t hit the right shots against the tall Texas blockers.
“I think we did all right actually. You know, I thought we lost that game more disappointingly not because we weren’t ball controlling, but because we weren’t hitting the right shots on them,” said Head Coach Pi’i Aiu.
In what would be the final game, the Buffs had only 11 kills, which was the lowest total on the night.
Gibson finished with 10 kills, while Schaefer recorded eight for the match. The team finished with 35 defense digs and six total team blocks.
“We’ll move on. Volleyball players are used to playing 30 matches a year. It’s not like football, where one match will define your season for you, so I don’t think we’ll have any problem moving on,” Aiu said.
With the Kansas State game on Nov. 1, the Buffs need to bounce back strong.
“(We will) show up for practice, start working hard. Just take what you can from this game and move on. You have to have a short memory,” Schaefer said.
