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Matches Thread- (RV) VOLLEYBALL ends non-conference play with a home & home vs. CSU (Thurs.,9/18/25 in Ft. Collins, 6:00 MT; Fri. in Boulder, 7:00 MT)

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The RV (Receiving votes in the Top 25 poll) volleyball team (9-0) end the non-conference portion of their schedule with what has become an annual*** 2 match home and home series with the CSU Rams (4-4).

Hope that some / many Allbuffians are able to make it to the Friday match!

***The teams have been competing in this home and home annually since 2019 (excluding the 2020 Covid season). Some notes:
  • It's been VERY competitive, with both teams 5-5 since the home and home began.
  • The last 3 seasons' matches have all been split, and in the last 2 seasons the road teams have won all 4 matches.
  • These have been some of the best matches attendance-wise for both teams:
    • At Moby, the matches with CU have been one of their most attended for at minimum the last 3 seasons I went back and looked at. Looking at the box scores the last 3 seasons, they drew ~8,400 in 2022, ~5,800 in 2023 and ~5K last year. (Always having a good fan base that is usually, I believe, in the top 10-15 in home attendance nationally, and usually being a good RPI opponent, the Rams are usually able to draw some "big name" schools to Ft Collins that get big crowds. (For example, they had matches with Florida last season and, just this past week, Notre Dame, both of which drew over 7,500.))
    • At CU, the CSU matches drew around 2,600-2700 the last 2 seasons and ~3,600 in 2022. (I did go through the CU box scores for last season, and all other home matches were in the 850-1450 range except for the CSU match and the one with BYU (which had around 1,650).)
Thursday's match stream is going to be on the (I believe free) Mountain West Network, while Friday's, as should be the case for all home matches and road conference matches this season, will be available for those with a premium ($) ESPN+ subscription. (See more details and links near the bottom of this post.)

Go Buffs!!!
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Links with more info on CSU:

Roster - https://csurams.com/sports/womens-volleyball/schedule
Stats - https://csurams.com/sports/womens-volleyball/stats/2025
Schedule/ results - https://csurams.com/sports/womens-volleyball/schedule/2025
Their preview article for the match with the Buffs - Not available as I type this.
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Media links:

Link to links to Live stats for all matches - https://www.statbroadcast.com/events/statbroadcast.php?t=1&gid=colo . For these specific matches:
Thursday - https://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=594113
Friday - https://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=594114

Live Video :
Thursday - Is scheduled to be available on the Mountain West Network, which should be a free stream available either on their app or at https://themw.com/watch/?sport=25 .
Friday - As usual for home matches, a stream should be available for all of those who have a premium ($) subscription to ESPN+. It can be seen either on the ESPN app or at https://www.espn.com/watch/player/_/id/7b9a846b-41ed-4750-bb7b-73f172656a58 .

Matches notes -
 
Not that they mean much of anything for this season, but wanted to give various ratings for the teams from last (2024) season and, for Massey, the current (still young) season .
(From what I've read in the Volleytalk forum, RPI and KPI are the only 2 ratings that the NCAA selection committees use for tourney selection,. Meanwhile, the Massey rankings, which are the only other free ratings I know of for volleyball, are considered more accurate (then at least RPI) as they factor in things like scores and home vs. away results, which RPI doesn't for volleyball. The RPI and KPI below are still from last season, while the Massey ratings are for this season.)

RPI (dated 12/22/24, https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/volleyball-women/d1/ncaa-womens-volleyball-rpi ) - CU ended up at #97, while CSU was #48.
KPI (https://faktorsports.com/. Note that to get these numbers I had to select various options to obtain these numbers for women's volleyball.) - CU ended up at #111, while CSU was #41.
Massey ((from https://masseyratings.com/cvol2025/11590/ratings) - CU is at #24, while CSU is #89.
 
Preview for the matches - https://cubuffs.com/news/2025/9/16/colorado-volleyball-ready-for-golden-spike-series

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Colorado Volleyball Ready for Golden Spike Series​

The Buffs look to take back the Golden Spike trophy

By: Malala Pyle, Assistant Director of Athletic Communication

BOULDER – The Colorado volleyball team (9-0, 0-0 Big 12) wraps up nonconference play this week with its annual home-and-home series against Colorado State (4-4, 0-0 Mountain West) in the Battle for the Golden Spike.

The Buffs will head up to Fort Collins on Thursday (Sept. 18) to play the Rams in Moby Arena at 6 p.m. MT, and the Rams make the journey to Boulder on Friday at 7 p.m. MT to determine who will take home the Golden Spike trophy.

Last weekend, the Buffs won another three matches, this time in Buffs Invitational – taking home their own tournament trophy with wins over Arkansas (3-1), Toledo (3-0) and Denver (3-0). Junior pin attacker Ana Burilovic, junior pin attacker Sydney Jordan, and junior middle blocker Cayla Payne were all named to the Buffs Invitational All-Tournament Team, and Payne was named tournament MVP.

Now 9-0 to start the 2025 season, this matches the best start the Buffs have had. The last time the Buffs were 9-0 to start the season was in 2021, and the Buffs lost seven sets. This season, Colorado has only lost three sets.


RIVALRY WEEK
COLORADO STATE
Moby Arena • FORT COLLINS, Colo. // CU Events Center • BOULDER, Colo.
Mountain West Network // ESPN+
MATCH #10 • Thursday, September 18 • 6 p.m. MT
MATCH #11 • Friday, September 19 • 7 p.m. MT
Colorado (9-0, 0-0 Big 12) vs. Colorado State (4-4, 0-0 Mountain West)
SERIES RECORD: CSU Leads, 19-28 (.404)
LAST MEETING: L 3-1 (September 20, 2024 • Boulder, Colo.)
STREAK: Lost 1 • LAST 10 MEETINGS: 5-5
OPPONENT WEBSITE: CSURams.com
...

ROAM WITH THE BUFFS: The Buffs' Thursday match at Fort Collins will be broadcast on Mountain West Network. The home match at CUEC on Friday will be broadcast on ESPN+. Fans can also follow Colorado matches through live stats with links available at CUBuffs.com.

BATTLE FOR THE GOLDEN SPIKE: The Golden Spike was originally donated by Colorado Volleyball supporter club members -- specifically the Comanche Crossing Museum in Strasburg, Colo., where the final spike was driven to connect the first continuous chain of train tracks from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Since the inaugural Battle for the Golden Spike in 2019, the Buffs are tied with the Rams 4-4. This will be the teams' 48th and 49th meetings all-time, and the Rams lead the series 19-28 overall.
...
"
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And, a couple other match and vball related items:

This Friday before the match is another Coach's Talk with Coach Mahoney-





 
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Wasn't able to catch any of tonight's match, but from the score looks like it's a "learn what you can from it and then forget about it" type of night, as they were swept and only scored 21, 18 and 17 in the 3 sets.
 
either the team played a pillow soft schedule and when they played a real team they get smoked. CSU is not a top 25 team by any means. imo this is unacceptable and I am not holding out much hope for tomorrow. This is par for the course with CU olympic sports. Beat the crap teams but never really compete and have a chance against good teams. I will exclude WBB and cross country from this comment
 
I realized last night this is not a good team. They were not in the match for a second. Totally dominated.

I will include WBB in your sentiment, even though it isn't an Olympic sport. The same thing happens there.

The reason is Rick George only cares about football.
 
The 1st set went GREAT for the Buffs, as they had their most dominant set of the year (or at least biggest winning margin) while defeating the Rams 25-11 to go up 1-0.

In the 2nd, CSU is up 6-3 after a successful Ram challenge.
 
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One of those times fans will wish that points carryover somehow, but of course they don't in volleyball. CSU ties it up after winning the 2nd 25-21.
 
A lot of fight by the Buffs in the 3rd to eventually go up 18-17 after a rough start had them down 3-10 early, but CSU, featuring a tough block, pull away late to win another 21-25 set to go up 1-2.
 
Bummer - the Buffs started the 4th set STRONG but a few bad-looking hitting errors let CSU back into the set and the Rams eventually eek out the 24-26 win to get the match 1-3.

The team showed a lot more tonight, and hopefully can take some of that while minimizing the errors when they start Big 12 play next week against the 2 ranked Utah schools.
 
better fight but still can't finish and seem to lose concentration. imo this was the best team they played and it showed they had a fluffy schedule that made their record look better than it was
 
Utah was upset last night.

The non conference schedule did not prepare this team for what is to come.

I expect to losses next week and hope I am wrong.
 
WBBBuffs said:
Utah was upset last night.

The non conference schedule did not prepare this team for what is to come.

I expect to losses next week and hope I am wrong.
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agree. This is going to be a tough week for them and the non conference did not prepare them for the big 12. imo playing Wyo, DU, Penn, UCI and teams like that does nothing for them. I know Jessee likes playing local teams but they need to schedule better teams to push them harder in non conference. A couple of things from the press conference that stood out was somebody besides Anna B has to score for them in these games. the two other pins did not score enough and every team has a couple rotations that can bleed points and when CSU was in those rotations CU had two service errors in the 4th set that took them out of those bad rotations and put CU in their bad rotations. He did not mind the errors/ace ratio as they had 9 aces to 6 errors but timing is everything. He sounded down last night during his presser and he should. Team going to struggle in the big 12.
 
I didn't watch the presser. I will find it and watch it. The big tall player from CSU was no match for CU. She intimidated Ana.

The players in the Big 12 are better than that player.
 
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