SALT LAKE CITY – No. 22-ranked Utah Volleyball split its opening day of matches on Friday at the Jon M. Huntsman Center, sweeping Loyola Marymount (25-22, 25-22, 25-16) in the season opener before later falling to No. 23 Kansas in four sets (22-25, 25-16, 25-20, 25-23).
“This is the type of match we want and need to be in for preseason,” said head coach Beth Launiere on the match against Kansas. “It was a defensive battle and had a lot of ebbs and flows, but this type of match will help us as a younger team looking to find our identity. Once we settled down after getting in a little bit of trouble, I really thought we were mentally tough and had great effort. This time of the year is about defining our team and matches like this go a long way to figure these things out.”
#22 Utah 3, LMU 0
Utah got the ball rolling right out of the gate against Loyola Marymount, taking a 10-4 advantage early on in the first set. The Lions eventually chipped away at the lead and cut the score to just 16-14 in favor of the Utes, but a 3-1 run for Utah pushed the lead out to 19-14. After LMU once again came within striking distance trailing just 22-20, freshman Ashley West earned a huge kill for the immediate sideout.
A service error would give the Utes set point and it was West who collected the set-winning kill for her fourth of the frame. The freshman led the Utes offensively, hitting .429 with four kills, while senior setter Emily Smith shared the ball…
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