Nov. 24, 2006
Final Stats
LAS VEGAS - The UNLV volleyball team's journey into the 2006 Mountain West Conference Tournament has come to an end with a 3-0 loss to the 9th-ranked and top-seeded Utah Utes on Friday at the Cox Pavilion in Las Vegas, Nev. The Rebels (20-10) have now been knocked out of the semifinals for the third straight year, while Utah (27-2) advances to its sixth straight championship match. The Utes won the match with scores of 30-14, 30-25, 30-27 and will face the third-seeded Colorado State Rams at 8:00 pm Saturday night.
With the win, Utah will play for back-to-back tournament titles as they defeated BYU 3-1 in 2005. Utah previously won the tournament championship in 2001 and 2002 before falling to Colorado State in 2003 and 2004. In the tournament, CSU holds a 3-1 in meetings during the MWC postseason.
Utah's offense came out attacking, as the Utes registered 14 kills, while hitting no errors. The Utes took game one handily after pushing out to an 8-2 lead. The remaining games followed suit, as Utah never let up off the pedal and cruised to wins in the second and third games. Overall, the team hit at a .344 clip and had no games register below .292. In the first frame they hit at a game-high of .538. All five Utes that accumulated at least one kill hit .310 or higher.
The Utes were led by Airial Salvo's double-double night. Salvo used a combination of 16 kills and 13 digs to achieve the feat. Kathryn Lovell registered 13 kills to follow Salvo's lead. Whitney Webb came close to cracking double-digits with her nine kills.
Helping the Utah set 47 of its 51 assisted kills was Sydney Anderson.
Defensively, Connie Dangerfield dug out a match-high 18 attacks, while Salvo had double-digits, as well. At the net, Utah blocked 13 (three solo, 20 assisted) of UNLV's attacks with Emillie Toone leading all with one solo and five assisted blocks.
UNLV got double-figure kill outings from Brittani Lumsden (12) and Lauren Miramontes (11). Lumsden topped all Rebel hitters with a .346 hitting percentage.
Melody Nua and Kristin Koochi split the setting duties with 21 and 13 assists each, respectively.
On the defensive side of the net, Jada Walker topped all Rebels with 15 digs with Camille Cunningham following close behind with 13.
UNLV must now wait and see if the NCAA selection committee thinks that the Rebels 20-10 record is worthy of being granted an at-large bid into the 2006 NCAA Tournament. The selection show will be shown on ESPNEWS between 12:00 pm (noon) and 1:00 pm on Sunday, Nov. 26. UNLV is looking for its first trip into the NCAA postseason.
