As the calendar has turned to July, UNLV Athletics' Top 10 Moments of the Decade summer series rolls on...
Before the 2020-21 school year arrives, UNLV Athletics is taking a look back at each of its teams' Top 10 Moments from the just-completed decade. The (non-scientific) lists will be unveiled through the middle of August.
Below is the eighth in the series: Volleyball. We hope you enjoy!
NO. 10: REBELS MAKE RUN TO TITLE GAME AS NO. 7 SEED
UNLV Knocked Off The No. 2 And No. 3 Seeds En Route To The Mountain West Championship Match Against Top-Seeded Colorado State (Nov. 20, 2011)
The Mountain West's volleyball tournament came to an end following the conclusion of UNLV's title run in 2007; however, the postseason spectacle came back three years later - and the only time this decade - when the Conference was comprised of only eight institutions. The Rebels entered the New Mexico-hosted tourney as the No. 7 seed and 12-16 overall, but neither of those mattered as the Scarlet & Gray began their unlikely run with a 3-0 win over No. 2 seed San Diego State, which had won 17 matches on the year. UNLV kept the momentum going with its 3-1 win over No. 3 seed TCU and its 23 wins. Unfortunately, the top-seeded Colorado State Rams were up next for UNLV, and the Fort Collins, Colorado-based squad claimed the title tilt in three sets. For their efforts, Candice Thomas and Stephanie Thelen were tabbed to the All-MW Tournament Team with the latter designated as the Championship's Most Outstanding Setter.
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NO. 9: HAYDEN NAMED MW PLAYER OF THE WEEK X3
Mariena Hayden Becomes The First Mountain West Performer To Be Named Player Of The Week Three Straight Weeks (Feb. 19, 2016)
On Sept. 24, 2019, UNLV sophomore
Mariena Hayden was named the Mountain West's Player of the Week for the third consecutive week, marking the first time an student-athlete had achieved the feat. Hayden used a pair of MVP performances at UNLV's Rebel Challenge and Saint Louis' Billiken Invitational to claim the first two weekly awards, while the third was a result of a perfect 2-0 start by the Rebels on the road in MW action. Moreover, UNLV went a perfect 8-0 over those three weeks, claiming tournament titles with 3-0 marks in those affairs.
Click here for more: First | Second | Third Awards
NO. 8: UNLV REBOUNDS FROM SLOW START TO REACH THE POSTSEASON
UNLV Opens The 2019 Season 4-9 Before Running Off 16-2 Stretch And End The Year In The NIVC
After starting the 2019 campaign with only four wins in its first 13 matches, which included two losses to start Mountain West play to Wyoming and No. 17 Colorado State, UNLV turned things around once the calendar turned to October. The Rebels began the perfect run through the month with a four-set win at San Diego State (Oct. 3) and wrapped up the nine-match stretch - all of which were W's - with a 3-1 triumph against Fresno State on Halloween at the Cox Pavilion. The streak came to a halt against SDSU in Las Vegas on Nov. 2; however, the winning ways quickly returned as the Rebels knocked off Boise State, 3-2, in Boise on Nov. 7 to start a seven-game run of victories. Capping off this recent stretch was a 3-1 triumph over Kansas City in the first round of the National Invitational Volleyball Championship. The year came to a close in a sweep at the hands of South Dakota in the second round.
NO. 7: PAIR OF REBELS JOIN 1,000 KILLS & 1,000 DIGS CLUB
Daryn Glenn Became First Rebel In Program History To Reach Historic Milestone, Mariena Hayden Becomes Second Five Years Later
It took the 24th year of year of the program's existence to see a Rebel reach the 1,000 kill and 1,000 dig milestone, as Daryn Glenn (2011-14) achieved the feat in a 3-1 win over Fresno State on Oct. 25, 2014. Glenn had already surpassed the dig mark before she needed a 12-kill performance against the Bulldogs to become only the seventh Mountain West student-athlete to record 1,000 kills and digs.
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Five seasons later,
Mariena Hayden (2017-present) joined the exclusive club and became only the second Rebel to muster up 1,000 kills and 1,000 digs in the squad's 3-1 win over Kansas City in the first round of the National Invitational Volleyball Championship on Dec. 5, 2019. Hayden; however, already had the kills' portion in the bag, but needed a double-digit haul in digs against the Roos to join Glenn. She managed to register 16 digs to surpass the 1,000 mark.
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NO. 6: HAYDEN MOVES ATOP THE MOUNTAIN
Mariena Hayden Sets UNLV Single-Match Record With 11 Aces Against Utah State, Becomes Mountain West Career Leader (Oct. 10, 2019)
It's not new to see
Mariena Hayden lead the Rebels offensively to victory; however, witnessing her do so by recording a double-double via a combination of 22 kills and 11 aces is quite rare. Not only did Hayden's 11 aces help her break the program's single-match record, but they also assisted in her ascension atop the statistical category in the Mountain West's record book. The junior from Belle Plaine, Minnesota, entered the match needing five aces to tie San Diego State's Robyn Gregg's haul of 176 amassed during her four-year career from 2000-03. Not only did Hayden get those five aces, but she got them in succession in the first set. She proceeded to surpass Gregg's mark with an ace in the third frame, which happened to be the first of six aces that occurred in a stretch of seven consecutive serves. To date, she has 227 for her career with a senior season left to play.
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SIDENOTE: In 2018, Hayden led the NCAA in both aces (114) and aces per set (0.90), and helped UNLV finish first overall in aces (251). Currently, she is UNLV's all-time leader in aces (227) and owns three of the top-five single-season totals in program history. In addition to her 114 aces in 2018, she had 70 in 2019 and 43 in 2017.
NO. 5: A WIN STREAK SPANS TWO SEASONS
UNLV Closed Out The 2015 Season With A Win And Carried Over That Momentum In First 11 Of 2016
Unbeknownst to anyone associated with the UNLV volleyball no one knew that a 3-1 victory over Fresno State in the 2015 season finale would kickstart the longest win streak in program history. That lone end-of-year triumph in 2015 was in the rearview mirror and forgotten about until the Rebels began the 2016 season winning one match after another. Ultimately, that '15 victory became part of the first step of a 12-match win streak - the longest recorded in UNLV volleyball lore. More impressively, none of the 12 matches went to a fifth set, as UNLV was 7-0 in four-setters and 5-0 in three-setters. The win streak came to an end in the final bout against nonconference competition, a 3-0 loss to No. 9 BYU in Provo, Utah, on Sept. 17. Coincidentally, the 2016 season came to a close in another 3-0 loss to BYU, which was ranked No. 10 at the time, in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
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NO. 4: REBELS REWRITE THE PROGRAM'S RECORD BOOK FOR WINS
UNLV Records Record-Setting 26 Overall, 14 Conference Wins; Posts Upset Of No. 7 Colorado State (Nov. 25, 2014)
UNLV turned in an impressive campaign in 2014, rewriting the program's record book with 26 overall wins, with 14 of those coming in Mountain West play. Overall, the Rebels reset or tied 11 program marks, which included most three-set wins (17), most three-set matches (19), most road-neutral wins (15), road wins (10) as well as longest road win streak (seven) and longest road conference win streak (seven).
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The Rebels began the year 2-2 before rattling off an 11-1 run that pushed the yearly mark to 13-3. The squad then suffered its only losing streak of the season with a pair of defeats at No. 7 Colorado State and Wyoming; however, UNLV rebounded going 13-2 the rest of the way. Included in that end-of-year run was an four-set upset of No. 7 Colorado State
(Recap) backed by double-doubles from Katlin Winters and Alyssa Wing at the Cox Pavilion in Las Vegas.
NO. 3: ALL THEY DO IS WIN, WIN, WIN
UNLV TURNS THINGS AROUND IN 2018, WINS 14 MORE MATCHES THAN IN '17
During the 2018 volleyball season, four NCAA Division I squads were able to amass 13 or more victories than the year before. UNLV and Bradley tied for the biggest turnaround with a plus-14 win differential, as the Rebels improved from an eight-win campaign in '17 to 22 victories in '18. A pair of Sunshine State squads, Stetson and Florida International, fell one win shy of tying the national leads, with both posting a plus-13 win differential.
NO. 2: REBELS RETURN TO THE POSTSEASON, WIN THREE MATCHES BEFORE SEMIFINAL FINISH IN NIVC
UNLV Hosts First/Second Rounds Of NIVC Before Hitting Road To Oregon And Iowa (Dec. 8, 2018)
After concluding the 2017 campaign with only eight wins, UNLV turned things around in 2018. The Rebels concluded the regular season with a 19-7 overall record and a 10-8 mark in the Mountain West, tying Boise State for fifth place. The Scarlet & Gray's season was not over, just yet, as the National Invitational Volleyball Championship selected UNLV to participate as well as serve as host for the first and second round of its postseason tournament. The Rebels welcomed fellow MW foe Fresno State as well as the Big West's UC Santa Barbara and UC Irvine. UNLV opened its stay at home with a 3-0 sweep of UCI
(Recap) and followed that with a 3-2 win over FS
(Recap), which avenged a pair of regular-season losses to the California squad. The Rebels then traveled to the Pacific Northwest to face the West Coast Conference's Portland Pilots, in what would be a successful trip to Oregon with a 3-1triumph
(Recap) - the team's 22nd victory. Unfortunately, the year came to a close in Ames, Iowa, in a four-set defeat to the Iowa State Cyclones
(Recap). Coincidentally, Ames and Iowa State had been home for UNLV's first-year head coach
Dawn Sullivan for the previous 13 seasons, as the Rebel bench boss had served as the Cyclones assistant and associate head coach from 2005 through the 2017 season.
NO. 1: REBELS UPSET UTES IN NCAA FIRST ROUND
UNLV Picks Up Program's First NCAA Victory In Four-Set Thriller Over No. 22 Utah (Dec. 2, 2016)
After finishing the regular season with a 23-7 overall record and a 12-6 mark in the Mountain West, which translated to a third-place finish in league play, UNLV was awarded an at-large berth into the NCAA Tournament. The Rebels were sent packing north on I-15 to a four-team regional that featured former MW foes No. 10 BYU (West Coast Conference) and No. 22 Utah (Pac-12) as well as the Ivy League's Princeton Tigers.
UNLV jumped out to a 2-0 lead over Utah before needing four sets to record the program's first postseason victory. The Scarlet & Gray was paced by setter Alexis Patterson's double-double that consisted of 49 assists and 11 digs, and her seven kills and one solo block. Bree Hammel and Sadie Stutzman led the Rebel attack with 18 and 14 kills, respectively. The former hit .298 and added two assists to go along with eight digs and seven total blocks (one solo) on the defensive side of the net while the latter hit .375 with two digs and one assisted block.
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