A volleyball team on a 12-game losing streak battled a team with an 11-game winning streak. Unfortunately for the Buffs, they were the former, and on Saturday, the CU volleyball team extended their losing streak.
The CU volleyball team fell in three sets to the No. 3 USC Trojans (25-18, 25-14, 25-17) at the Galen Center in Los Angeles.
The win was the 12th in a row for USC, while Colorado has yet to win a Pac-12 Conference match.
The Buffs earned their first set victory against a conference opponent on Friday night against UCLA. However, head coach Liz Kritza said her team wasn’t able to harness that momentum in the battle against USC.
Playing against Utah on Sept. 13, 2011, freshman Emily Alexis dives in the back row to save the ball and allow her teammates to return it over the net. (CU Independent file/Amy Leder)
“We ran into an extremely tough challenge tonight, and despite trying to hold on to the momentum we gained yesterday, USC was simply too much for us tonight,” Kritza said in a news release. “When you take a step in the right direction, you have to keep moving and we simply were not able to take another big step tonight.”
In the first set, USC gained an early 5-1 advantage. While the Buffs were able to tie the score at 7-7, the women of Troy pulled ahead again at 17-12. Although CU scored six more times before the end of the set, they could not secure a rally and eventually fell 25-18.
The Buffs pulled ahead early in the second set, taking a 5-3 lead. USC responded quickly, though, going up 11-6. USC would only widen its lead from there, taking the set victory 25-14.
In the third set, USC again built a lead of 11-6. The Buffs attempted a comeback but were unable to hold on as USC took the set 25-15, earning the overall match victory.
Junior Kerra Schroeder led the Buffs on the offense, recording 10 kills, while red-shirt freshman Kelsey English, sophomore Nikki Lindow and freshman Neira Ortiz Ruiz added three kills apiece.
Sophomore Elysse Richardson took control of the Colorado defense with 10 digs.
The Buffs’ record now drops to 5-16 overall and 0-13 in the Pac-12, while the Trojans improve to 17-3 overall and in 12-1 in conference play.
Colorado has nine conference matches left in the regular season, with just four taking place in Boulder.
CU will hit the road once more next weekend, taking on Oregon State at 8 p.m. MST on Friday and No. 18 Oregon at 2 p.m. MST on Saturday.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Caryn Maconi at Caryn.maconi@colorado.edu.
