Sept. 5, 2009
OREM, Utah - Utah Valley University's quest to win the La Quinta Inn and Suites Invitational came up a little short in losing to Washington State 25-22, 25-23, 25-22 in the championship match Saturday night.
Also, earlier in the day the Wolverines (4-2) dropped a 20-25, 25-16, 21-25, 23-25 decision to Missouri.
Despite the two losses, Utah Valley University volleyball coach Sam Atoa is happy with how his team performed in beating No. 17 Utah Friday night and hanging close with teams from the Big 12 Conference and Pacific-10 Conference.
"I'm pleased, but for sure I would have wanted to get more wins," he said. "We accomplished our goal coming into this weekend and what we wanted to do for the last two weeks. The girls fought hard and we gave ourselves opportunities. We just fell short."
The Wolverines went 4-2 in the opening two weeks and won the Weber State Invitational last week.
Due to point differential, Missouri (1-2) finished third and Utah (1-2) finished fourth in the La Quinta Inn & Suites Invitational.
Utah Valley's Camie Manwill and Allyce Jones were named to the all-tournament team his week.
The first set against Washington State Saturday was tied five times before the Cougars made a run to lead 9-5. The Wolverines rallied and took a three-point lead at 17-14 on a kill by Chelsea Fa'alogo, a service ace by Jones and a kill by Manwill.
The Wolverines couldn't hang on as Washington State took the lead at 21-20 and then scored four of the final five points to win the set.
UVU fell behind 5-0 in the second set, and eventually trailed by as many seven points at 21-14. The Wolverines, thanks to errors by WSU and two kills by Fa'alogo, and kills from Dani Robison and Kayli Broadbent, tied the score at 23 before losing 25-23.
The Wolverines led 5-2 in the third set before Washington State took control of the set after taking a 7-6 lead. UVU came within a point at 23-22 on a kill by Broadbent. The Cougars answered with the final two points to take the set and match.
Manwill had 18 digs and 10 kills in the loss, while Broadbent had 12 kills and Jones had 23 digs and Kathleen Stevens had 11 digs. Washington State hit at .240 for the match, while UVU hit at .209.
In the first match of the day, Manwill tallied 14 kills and three service aces, and Broadbent had 13 kills, while Jones finished with 21 digs and Fa'alogo recorded 40 assists.
The Wolverines are back in action Friday night at 7 p.m. when they host USC on the opening day of the Wolverine Invitational. They will play USC again at 1 p.m. on Saturday before closing out the invitational with Idaho State at 7 p.m.
