Volleyball Falls in Tournament Finale

 

Kenzie Jones, Sports Editor, @KenzieScribbler

After some impressive wins earlier in the tournament the Utah Valley volleyball team dropped the Mean Green Classic title to host North Texas on Saturday night. The title match was decided in four sets with scores of 18-25, 13-25, 27-25, 20-25.

The Wolverines hung right in there with North Texas for the first half of the opening set as the score volleyed back and forth pretty much evenly until it reached a tie at 13-all. From there UNT used a 4-0 run to take a 13-17 lead witch the home team held up to the end of the set

The second set seemed to mirror the first as both teams once again traded points early on. North Texas made another run and took control of the frame. No matter how hard UVU tried they couldn’t pull together a rally and the set ended with a Mean Green win by 12 points.

UVU found a niche to use in a counter attack in the third as they went on the win the frame. The Mean Green held a 24-23 match-point advantage when the Wolverines scored back-to-back points to take a set-point lead of their own. North Texas tied the score at 25-25, but UVU managed to score two more consecutive points to force a fourth set. The final kill took place at the hands of Nakisha Willden who had made another clutch kill earlier in the set.

The climax of the fourth set came when the score was tied at 16-all and the female athletes of UNT made their move by scoring five unanswered points to take a late 21-16 lead. Macky Treanor placed a kill that was quickly followed by a block assts from Cassie Wahlin and Madison Wolford, which brought UVU within three at 21-18. That was as close as the Wolverines would get to a second set win as UNT took the set and ended the Match.

Utah Valley now heads home to host the La Quinta Invitational that is being held the weekend of September 19-20. The Wolverines will first face off against Idaho State at 7:00p.m. MT on that Friday.