No. 7 Colorado State volleyball rides the Marlee Reynolds wave in win

FORT COLLINS — Colorado State has sought to have balance in their offense all season to keep defenses guessing.

Sometimes, a team has to deviate when the moment is right, and that became apparent to setter Deedra Foss about midway through the second set.

When a hitter is as smoking hot as Marlee Reynolds was against UNLV on Thursday, a setter simply has to run her hitter through a buffet line of swings, and that’s what she did as the No. 7 Rams (15-1, 3-0 Mountain West) took down the Rebels in four sets at Moby Arena, 25-15, 23-25, 25-16, 25-14.

“It was like almost every time I was setting the ball to Marlee she was getting a kill,” said Foss, who had 49 assists on the night. “If that’s what’s going to work, you keep going to that person.”

Reynolds set a career-best with 21 kills, and it came on just 40 swings with only one error. That came after she had put down 12 kills, and it was registered when she was blocked.

The senior was in a rhythm all night, and even if the guess work was gone, the Rebels (13-4, 1-1) still had no answer on how to stop her. Even in the second set UNLV won, they led 24-21 before two consecutive Reynolds’ kills made it tighter.

“Marlee Reynolds played great,” Hilbert said. “She was on fire so much that we switched our lineup to row five where she could start in the left front for sets three and four. It was a good move, if I do say so myself.”

It was with that comment he laughed at himself, then leaned over to giver her a fist bump.

Her best night previously had come against Pepperdine when she had 19 kills last year. But that came on 45 swings and she had eight hitting errors.

Against UNLV, it was just straight firing.

“I just got out there and immediately felt comfortable, confident and good,” Reynolds said. “It was internal, I guess.”

The matchup was one that pitted two of the better teams in the Mountain West, with UNLV ranking fourth in hitting and second in opponent hitting percentage, while CSU was second and third, respectively, in those categories.

It just didn’t play out that way, however. UNLV only hit .103 on the night, while the Rams finished at a .354 clip. The Rebels did have three players register double-digit kills (Ceannia Kincade led with 14), but none of them hit better than .179 as the Rebels had 31 hitting errors in the match.

The Rams were the opposite. They had no more than five hitting errors in any set and just one in the opener. Kelsey Snider had nine kills as five Rams had at least seven in the match.

Colorado State also out-blocked (11-9) the top blocking team in the conference, but Hilbert warned this wasn’t going to give his team a false impression. He felt UNLV’s outsides sprayed the ball around a lot more, partially because of the Rams’ defense (67 digs, led by 14 from Jaime Colaizzi), but also because of the Moby atmosphere.

“Still, again, I’m going to say that’s not UNLV’s best effort. That’s an on-the-road deal, and I don’t want to fall into a trap where we think … We’re not going to dominate that team like we did,” he said. “Now, we know more about them now, we know some things to do and we’ll make those adjustments. Offensively, yes, I thought we were good. I thought we were good from Marlee’s standpoint.”

Colorado State remains at home for a Saturday match with San Diego State, a team which ended the Rams’ undefeated run last year.

Yes, the team has considered that.

“Yeah, revenge. That’s the only way to put it,” Reynolds said. “Honestly, I kind of forgot about it a little bit, because I like to just think forward. But we have kind of been talking about it some, and it will be sweet to beat them where they beat us last year.”

Contact Sports Editor Mike Brohard at 970-635-3633 or mbrohard@reporter-herald.com and twitter.com/mbrohard