No. 13 Colorado State sweeps Northern Colorado

GREELEY – The CSU volleyball team's 2014 season is off to the same blistering start it was a year ago, but the Rams are now doing it in even better fashion.

No. 13 Colorado State University built on the three sweeps it picked up last weekend in the Rams Volleyball Classic with a 3-0 victory over the University of Northern Colorado on Wednesday night at the Butler-Hancock Pavilion in Greeley, winning 25-17, 25-13, 25-21 in its first road match.

The Rams' 12 consecutive set victories to open their season is the second-best behind 21 tallied in 1986.

"Obviously, you want to sweep (the opposing) team, but I feel like bumps is where you learn how to grow. It's not going to be a sweep all the time. We're eventually going to face that, and that's going to determine how we do as a team," middle blocker Kelsey Snider said.

In front of a home crowd of 1,877 and a strong presence from its student section, UNC (2-2) was able to stick with CSU both early and late on Wednesday night. The Bears battled with the Rams throughout the majority of the first set, but 26 total errors committed proved too much to overcome.

CSU (4-0) then took control of the match with a dominant second set in which it shot out to an early 8-1 lead.

"I think we started off a lot better than we started in the first and third set," Snider said. "Once we got the ball rolling, it would keep going. So I think we gained the momentum right off the bat from there, and it was just hard for them to regain it back."

Snider led all players with 11 kills. Jasmine Hanna had eight, Acacia Andrews had seven and Marlee Reynolds had six as CSU won the first match in the CSU/UNC Tournament.

The Rams will work with short recovery time between Wednesday's victory and arguably one of the toughest weekends on their regular-season schedule. CSU returns home to host Florida A&M at 7 p.m. Friday and No. 4 Wisconsin at the same time Saturday.

"I do think playing a lot of matches is good," coach Tom Hilbert said. "It's shown us some things, but our ability to go back and work on our weaknesses, we probably won't get that until week four. That's the way that we made the schedule and it is what it is."

Follow sports reporter Quentin Sickafoose on Twitter @QSickafoose.