What's new
AllBuffs | Unofficial fan site for the University of Colorado at Boulder Athletics programs

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • Prime Time. Prime Time. Its a new era for Colorado football. Consider signing up for a club membership! For $20/year, you can get access to all the special features at Allbuffs, including club member only forums, dark mode, avatars and best of all no ads ! But seriously, please sign up so that we can pay the bills. No one earns money here, and we can use your $20 to keep this hellhole running. You can sign up for a club membership by navigating to your account in the upper right and clicking on "Account Upgrades". Make it happen!

Matches Thread- #19 Volleyball play back to back matches with (RV) CSU (Ft. Collins- Thurs., 9/12, 7:00; Boulder- Friday, 6:00)

AztecBuff

Club Member
Club Member
Moderator
Best wishes to the team. Hope they all bring peak intensity from point #1, because I'm sure the Rams will. (The Rams are just outside the Top 25, as they're receiving the 26th most votes in the latest coaches' poll, 30 points behind #25 FSU (who they just swept this past weekend).)

Note - In case it's buried in the below tweet and quoted article, fans are requested to wear black to Friday evening's match at the Keg. (From CSU's twitter, Thursday night's match is an "Orange out" for them, so anyone planning on going to that match in Ft. Collins might also want to dress accordingly that evening.)

Looking in the Volleyball Information Guide, CSU has a 14-23 lifetime edge in the series, which featured a VERY bad stretch where the rams won 12 out of 13 (including 4 NCAA tournament matches) from 1990 through 2014, but the Buffs have won the last 3. Those last 3 have been VERY close, with 2 going 4 sets and the other 5. 2 years ago, the Buffs battled back from a 0-2 deficit to win in 5 in Fort Collins, while last year the total net point differential in the Buffs 4 set home win was a whopping +1.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Preview-


Direct link - https://cubuffs.com/news/2019/9/10/volleyball-colorado-take-on-csu-in-home-and-home-battle.aspx (Full article also pasted below.)

"
BOULDER – The University of Colorado women's volleyball team will take on Colorado State University in a pair of home-and-home matches this Thursday at Moby Arena in Fort Collins at 7 p.m., then 23 hours later at 6 p.m. in the CU Events Center on Friday to decide the winner of the inaugural Golden Spike Trophy.

No.19-ranked Colorado (5-0) rolls into Thursday's match having just lost a single set all season long. The team swept former No.5 Illinois in Iowa City last Saturday, hitting a dominating .462 against the Illini. Those efforts award CU with a pair of Pac-12 player of the week honors, Meegan Hart as the Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Week and Jill Schneggenburger as the Pac-12 Freshman of the Week.

The Buffs are led by senior Justine Spann, fresh off being named the Co-MVP of the Pac-12/BIG TEN Challenge. Spann has a team-high 68 kills, averaging 4.25 kills per set and hitting .234. She had a career-high .560 hitting percentage with 16 kills against Illinois.

Also for the Buffs offensively, the freshmen duo of Schneggenburger and Sterling Parker has been a welcome addition to the squad. Schneggenburger, named to the Pac-12/BIG TEN Challenge All-Tournament team, had just a single hitting error last weekend and hit an outstanding 12 kills and .661 hitting percentage against Illinois. She has 49 kills this season, averaging more than three kills per set and hitting a team-best .322. Parker has 42 kills and is hitting .274.

The Buffs as a whole are hitting .268, good for 13th in the nation. Jenna Ewert is leading the distribution with 160 assists (10 per set). She is also leading the team with 52 digs.

On the defensive side, Hart has 22 total blocks and is averaging 1.37 per set. Parker and Price have 17 and 16 blocks this season, respectfully, giving CU a strong front that has 42.5 blocks this season. The Buffs are ranked 24th in the nation in blocks per set.

Friday's match with be a 'Wear Black' night with 200 t-shirts to the first 200 students to arrive at the match.

SCOUTING THE RAMS
Colorado State (5-1) is coming off of a sweep of No.22 Florida State last weekend in Fort Worth. CSU has swept every opponent it has beaten this season, including TCU and Oklahoma. The team's one falter was a four-set loss to Cal in Moby Arena. Cal, who leads the NCAA in team hitting percentage, held CSU to a .123 hitting percentage and hit .291 in the win. CSU is hitting .264 as a team, good for 44th in the nation. They are also 10th in blocks per set at three per set and 36th in opponent hitting percentage at .125.

CSU has five offensive weapons with 30 or more kills this season, led by redshirt junior Breana Runnels' 68. Senior middle blocker Paulina Hougaard-Jensen will pose a threat to CU with 53 kills and a .349 hitting percentage along with her counterpart, redshirt senior Kirstie Hillyer who has 43 kills and a .344 hitting percentage. The Rams are an experienced team with another pair of seniors, Jessica Jackson and Olivia Nicholson that have 38 and 31 kills, respectfully. Senior setter Katie Oleksak rounds out the experienced starting offense with 11 assists per set.

Defensively, junior libero Alexa Roumeliotis has 78 digs, averaging more than four per set. The two middles have 27 and 21 blocks, led by Hougaard-Jensen who is averaging more than 1.4 per set. CSU as a team has 56.5 blocks this season.

GOLDEN SPIKE SHOWDOWN
This season the Buffs and Rams will compete for the inaugural Golden Spike Trophy, a rivalry traveling trophy inspired by the CU Volleyball Supporter Club. The Golden Spike is a vintage railroad spike donated by the Comanche Crossing Museum in Strasburg, Colo., that has been painted golden and set in the trophy. The spike represents the final spike driven in the Kansas Pacific Railroad that laid the final tracks that connected the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts more than 149 years ago. The two teams will compete annually for the trophy, with the winner of the second match in seasons where two are played in the regular season taking the honor.
"
_________________________________________________________________________




Match notes - https://cubuffs.com/documents/2019/9/10//CSU_Match_Notes.pdf

Match Media links -
Thursday evening (At Moby Arena, Fort Collins, 7:00 PM MT)
Live video -
Looks like it should be viewable (hopefully for free) via a live stream available at (Per CSU's schedule at https://csurams.com/schedule.aspx?schedule=367 ).

Live stats - https://csurams.com/sidearmstats/wvball/summary

Friday evening (In Boulder, 6:00 PM MT) :
Live video -
Match is being shown live on the Pac 12 National and Mountain channels. For those whose Cable/ Satellite/ Cord Cutting subscription includes access to either of those Pac 12 channels, assume the match can also be streamed through a link at https://pac-12.com/womens-volleyball/event/2019/09/13/colorado-state-colorado .

Live stats (Both matches) - https://cubuffs.com/sidearmstats/wsoc/summary
 
Last edited:
I get that Justine likes to prove people wrong when they see Colorado as the underdog in a match. But we need to have Justine playing like she did last weekend when we are NOT the underdog. Last season it seemed like the Buffs choked every time they got into the rankings. Couldn't seem to handle it. That needs to change so that every match is played with the focus and intensity we "saw" in Iowa.
 
I wondered before the Iowa match if Justine was playing. She had a heavy wrap on one leg and was watching warm ups, not participating in warm ups. I was very happy to see her on the court.

Hope some fans go to Moby for the match!
 
I wondered before the Iowa match if Justine was playing. She had a heavy wrap on one leg and was watching warm ups, not participating in warm ups. I was very happy to see her on the court.

Hope some fans go to Moby for the match!
Hope the Buffs break them. We can refer to CSU as Curb Stomped U.
 
Buffs also off to a rough start in the 2nd set, and called timeout down 7-14. It's 8-16 now.
 
Ouch - another 12-25 set. Buffs going to have to turn it around at minimum just so, if nothing else, they feel they have some momentum and positive things to build on going into tomorrow. (Think announcer said they're hitting around -.150 in hitting % for the match. Edit- it may "only" be -.120 or so.)
 
Last edited:
12 is going to be a 4 letter number for the Buffs in this one. After losing the 1st 2 sets with that point total, they were playing neck and neck with the rams through 12 all, then promptly give up a 6 or so point scoring run to get into trouble.

It's 16-22 right now, as CU takes their last timeout.
 
The Buffs get a few points to make it look better as a final score, but they end up getting swept, with the 3rd finishing up 21-25. The team hitting %'s ends up .341 for the Rams to .000 for the Buffs.

Just going to have to shake this one off and get ready for tomorrow.
 
Last edited:
It will be interesting to see how they play tomorrow. I think this was a tough test for a young team
 
The Buffs looked terrible last night. They never got their act together, although they played a bit better in the 3rd set.

Playing CSU at Moby is always difficult. CSU is an experienced team. Our youth and inexperience really showed last night.

I hope the team can play well tonight on their home court.
 
VB Buffs got a butt kicking last night. The youngsters did not play like they did in Iowa. And the experienced players didn't look so good either. Hopefully they can learn from it quickly and play well at home tonight, building on the way they finished in the third set. At least their acrophobia shouldn't be a problem today. IMO they played themselves back into the underdog role for tonight.
 
Last weekend's matches were on a neutral court for Illinois. Match vs Iowa was like playing CU in Coors. It's played where they play basketball and it was not a big crowd. Of course, with Iowa never being in the match, the crowd never was loud either.

Entirely different experience at Moby.

Agree on the underdog role. Hope they decide they have something to prove.
 
Back
Top