Colorado State volleyball ties conference record in win over Air Force

Tom Hilbert admits that he takes a brief moment to stop and smell the roses every now and then.

The coach swears that his team doesn’t allow themselves to get wrapped up in the hype surrounding the success they’ve achieved in the 2013 season. But No. 10 Colorado State’s 3-0 sweep (25-21, 25-20, 25-21) over Air Force at Moby Arena on Friday night landed it in the history books once again.

The Rams are currently riding a 25-game winning streak to open the year, tying Utah’s conference record set back in 2006.

“The last team to win this many in a row was also the last team to run the table, and the only team to run the table in the Mountain West Conference,” Hilbert said. “I take it in occasionally, but I also know that the way – and seriously it’s cliché – to do it is to do it one match at a time.”

However, Friday’s victory didn’t come as easy as predicted for CSU.

The Rams trailed in all three of the match’s sets, including a competitive first frame that went through 10 tie scores and four lead changes. The Falcons continued to battle in the second, pulling out to a 7-1 lead to open the set before CSU went on a 12-2 run to take back control.

“I can’t say that I was expecting to be in that big of a deficit, but I was definitely expecting them to fight for it,” libero Jaime Colaizzi said. “I have a lot of respect for Air Force. They’re a really scrappy team and we did expect them to be great defensively; and they were.”

Colorado State’s success was a product of being able to contain Air Force outside hitter Akokwe Clement, who ended the night leading her team with 12 kills.

The Falcons’ go-to play continued to be setting up Clement on the left side, something that CSU middle blocker Samantha Peters picked up on and made the adjustment to cease.

“I think we ended up getting more touch blocks as the match went on, but still not as many stuffs as we would have liked to block for point,” Peters said. “Even recognizing that she’s a great player and we need to be able to adjust to players like that better than we did.”

The Rams brought a balanced attack to the table that proved to be too much for the Air Force defense, which tallied only four team blocks on Friday. CSU had a trio of hitters with double-digit kills with 13 coming from Marlee Reynolds, 12 from Peters and 11 contributed by Michelle Lawrence.

“It was a very interesting match. Each game was competitive until about 18 points and then we started to pull away, and that’s what this team has been good at doing,” Hilbert said.

The Rams reached the conference milestone in front of a crowd of 3,501 in attendance for the record-reaching win.

CSU has four games remaining on its regular season schedule, including two away matches at San Jose State and Fresno State on its upcoming road trip.

“Honestly it’s an honor because obviously we had nothing to do with it before we got here,” Peters said. “We just want to keep that tradition going as long as we can, and do our part to part of Ram volleyball.”

Sports writer Quentin Sickafoose can be reached on Twitter @QSickafoose.