Jesse Mahoney left the volleyball fray in Fort Collins to start from scratch. As an assistant at Colorado State, he saw the Rams turn out top-25 teams every year. At Denver, where he took over as head coach in 2012, Mahoney was looking up.
A lot of teams look up at the Rams. They’ve played in 20 consecutive NCAA Tournaments. But they don’t have a monopoly on volleyball attention along the Front Range this year.
For the first time, four Front Range teams will play in the NCAA Tournament, starting Friday in Fort Collins.
The Pioneers — who earned their first NCAA Tournament bid this season after winning the Summit League title — will finally step into the elite arena. And, as fate would have it, they’ll do it against Colorado State.
Denver (27-6) will face the No. 12-ranked Rams (29-2) at 6:30 p.m. at Moby Arena.
Colorado (19-13), after its best finish in the stacked Pac-12 (fourth), will go against Big Sky champion Northern Colorado (22-9) at 4:30 p.m. The winners play in a second-round match at Moby on Saturday at 4:30 p.m.
“There’s a lot of energy in our program because we’re in a place we haven’t been before,” Mahoney said. “There’s a big opportunity in front of us.”
That opportunity comes against a Rams’ team that won a sixth consecutive Mountain West title behind conference player of the year Deedra Foss.
“It’s tough to match up against a team like Colorado State because they’re big and physical, and they’re also very skilled and they’re very well-coached,” Mahoney said. “We’re not as physical. But we feel we are just as skilled.”
Mahoney, who graduated from Colorado before cutting his teeth as an assistant over seven seasons at Colorado State, ascribed the unprecedented collection of Front Range teams in the tournament to the quality of volleyball in Colorado, top to bottom.
“Colorado State has been to the last 20 NCAA Tournaments. Northern Colorado has been to four of the last five. CU has been coming back into the top 20. And we’ve been building this year,” Mahoney said. “The four programs that are competing have really done a great job of keeping the best kids at home. And Colorado is one of the best states in the country for volleyball.”
Pioneers sophomore Nola Basey, from Lyons High School, is one of three DU players from Colorado to earn All-Summit League honors, along with Bailey Karst (Eaglecrest) and Sarah Schmid (Regis).
“It’s so exciting,” Basey said of playing in an all-Colorado subregional. “It just shows how much talent Colorado has as a whole.”
Nick Groke: ngroke@denverpost.com or twitter.com/nickgroke
NCAA volleyball tournament
(At Moby Arena in Fort Collins)
Friday’s first round
Colorado (19-13) vs. Northern Colorado (22-9), 4:30 p.m.
Denver (27-6) vs. No. 12 Colorado State (29-2), 6:30 p.m.
Saturday’s second round
First-round winners, 4:30 p.m.
