LAS VEGAS (UNLVRebels.com) – The UNLV volleyball team opened up the start of their Mountain West season the best way imaginable with a 3-0 sweep of the Boise State Broncos Thursday at the Cox Pavilion. The Rebels and Broncos entered the week with the two best nonconference records by MW squads through four weeks of play, and it was the former that came out victorious in straight sets (25-18, 25-21, 25-19) in front of a boisterous crowd of nearly 700 individuals.
 
After building a 2-0 lead, the Scarlet & Gray (10-3 overall, 1-0 MW) was forced to fight back against the Broncos (8-4, 0-1) in the third - a frame that featured nine ties and five lead changes. Facing a three-point deficit at the 17-14 mark, UNLV rattled off an 11-2 run powered by five kills of its own, two aces by Mariena Hayden and four miscues by the Broncos (three attack errors and one service error).
 
The Rebels outhit the Broncos by 184 points (.327 to .143) with help from 13 more kills (45-32) and four fewer errors (12-16) in 11 fewer attack attempts (101-112). The home side hit between .289 (second set) to .360 (third) in the contest and posted 16 kills in both the first and second, and 13 in the third, while its errors only topped out at five in the middle stanza. BSU, on the other hand, hit between .079 (second) and .182 (first) and had either five or six errors in each set.
 
STAT OF THE GAME: UNLV notched 17 more digs in the match (52-35), and that figure is the second-largest margin posted by its defense in a match this season, just three fewer than the plus-20 (55-35) posted vs. Fordham (Sept. 7). Hayden and Elsa Descamps had nearly 50 percent of the Rebels' digs, as the duo combined for 25.
 
REBEL OF THE GAME: Hayden registered her ninth double-double of the season and 19th of her career with a combination of 17 kills and 14 digs. She hit at a .520 clip (17-4-25) and had one assist to go along with three aces – two of which came in the final three points of the match.
 
QUOTABLE: "The first two sets I thought we played really well and were very disciplined in what we did, and they were just on a mission," said head coach Dawn Sullivan. "The third set, we came out and had a little adversity; just had to calm them down a little bit and when they took that breath they were on fire again. They went out and did what they were supposed to do just one point at a time. Our ball control was huge; it allowed us to get the balls to the middles a lot more and I thought they were phenomenal at the net. Mo (Mariena Hayden) was also great, she does amazing things for us at the serving line, in front defensively, and at the net. Just all around, I thought it was a really nice performance by everybody."
 
REBEL NOTES:
- UNLV snapped a three-match losing skid to BSU with Thursday's win and improved its mark to 6-12 in the all-time series.
- UNLV is now 5-1 at home, while BSU dropped only its second match away from home – 6-2 in neutral and true road matches.
- UNLV has won 10 of its first 13 matches this season and it's only the fourth time that a squad has won at least 10 of those in program history. The 1998 and 2014 teams also went 10-3, while the program's two NCAA Tournament participants went 11-2 in 2007 and 12-1 in 2016.
- UNLV has won seven straight, and it's the seventh instance a team has won at least seven in a row in a given season – 1984, 1998, 1999, 2007 (twice) and 2016; the longest stretch is 11 consecutive in 2016.
- With help from her three aces, Hayden extended her lead in UNLV's single-season record book with 55 aces, and inched closer to Leiana Oswald (2000-03) in third, as the former has 98 and needs six more to pull even with the latter at 104.
- Descamps had 11 digs in the match, and it marked the fourth contest with 10 or more this season. In her first three years, she did not have one bout with double digits in digs.
 
NEXT FOR THE REBELS: UNLV hits the road for three straight against Mountain West foes. The Rebels travel to Logan, Utah, to play the Utah State Aggies Saturday afternoon (1:00 pm MT/12:00 pm PT) before making stops in Albuquerque, N.M. (vs. New Mexico) and Colorado Springs, Colorado (vs. Air Force) next week on Sept. 26 and 28, respectively.
 
REBELS BACK HOME: UNLV will not return to play in Las Vegas and the Cox Pavilion until October. The Rebels will host San Jose State on Oct. 4 and follow that with a Governor's Series tilt with UNR two days later (Oct. 6).