Volleyball Records Second Sweep of the Day, Defeats Rice

BOULDER — The Buffs recorded their second win of the Omni Invitational on Saturday with a 3-0 victory over Rice (4-3) to improve to 5-0 on the season. Set scores were 25-15, 25-20, 25-20.

WHAT HAPPENED: The Buffs put up a strong performance with three players, junior Alexa Smith, junior Naghede Abu and senior Joslyn Hayes, racking up nine kills each. Smith also recorded five digs, two blocks and one assist with no attack errors to hit .429. Abu hit .389 with just two errors on 18 attacks while contributing three blocks, and Hayes hit .421 with one error on 19 swings while adding three blocks and two digs.

Senior Anna Pfefferle also put up solid numbers for the Buffs, recording six kills while hitting .429 and two blocks. Freshman setter Brynna Deluzio handed out 32 assists in addition to three kills, three digs, two aces and one block.

CU held Rice to a .208 hitting efficiency, thanks in part to a 15-dig performance by junior Gabby Carta-Samuels. Junior Frankie Shebby was second on the team with 10 digs.

SET 1: The first set began fairly evenly until the Buffs gained serious momentum following a 4-4 tie. CU dominated the set, going on an 11-2 run that took its lead to 22-11. Despite a pair of timeouts by Rice, the Buffs racked up a final score of 25-15 to start the match.

SET 2: CU carried its momentum from the first set into the second, going on an early 8-2 run to start the set. After taking a timeout, the Owls rallied and fought back, forcing possession to continually switch between the two teams. Despite coming within two points at 13-11, the Owls were unable to take the lead and the Buffs claimed the victory with a score of 25-20.

SET 3: Rice came back refreshed after intermission and put up a fight in the third set. Possession changed consistently resulting in a 7-7 tie. The Buffs charged ahead going on a five-point run, giving them a 12-7 lead. After taking a timeout, the Owls answered back with a 5-3 run. Despite Rice's attempts to rally, Colorado pulled ahead and finished the match with a final set score of 25-20

TEAM STATISTICS: The Buffs and the Owls put up similar numbers on the stat sheet. CU hit .318 with 43 kills and just nine errors on 107 attacks, while the Owls hit .208 with 41 kills and 19 errors on 106 attacks. The Buffs were dominant in blocking, leading 5.5-1.0 in addition to holding the advantage with four aces to Rice's one.

NOTEABLE: The Buffs are now 5-0 for the season, a record that they haven't held since 2008…The all-time series is now tied 1-1 as the Buffs avenged a 2015 loss to the Owls.

NEXT UP: The Buffs will be back in action Sunday at 11 a.m. MT against the Abilene Christian Wildcats. The match will be streamed live at pac12.com/live/cubuffs. Live stats are available at CUBuffs.com.

QUOTES:
Head Coach Jesse Mahoney
On whether coach is surprised with how well the players are playing in the past two weeks.
"We expect to be successful, so I wouldn't say I'm surprised. That was a good team out there, and to beat them in three sets, and be in control the whole time, I was happy to see that. We've been winning games where we haven't been as in control as I think we could be. We are where we need to be, but we still have to get better."

On the development of Freshman Brynna DeLuzio.
"She's doing a fantastic job and she's getting a lot of information from the bench; she's learning really fast. For a freshman, I'm not sure I've ever had a center dissimilate information the way she has. Tonight, one of our goals was to have every one of our players with four attempts per set. I think we did that, and that's hard to do as a setter, to consciously spread the ball out the way she has. On top of that, she's just a hard-working kid and gets after it all the time. She's been a little bit of a god send this season."

On the new players stepping into bigger roles this year and how they're helping win games.
"We are winning, it's because of the ways the pieces are fitting. Gabby (Carta-Samuels) had 15 digs, that's five digs per set and that's really nice. She's been playing in a much more calm fashion since she's got the starting nod, which is really good to see. Frankie Shebby has some star potential, she hasn't quite put the numbers up we were expecting, but she's going to get there. She's going to get better. We've been toying around with a double sub 6-2 situation which allows us to get a bigger block in there as well. So yeah, I think we've got a lot of older faces in there but they're in slightly different roles and it's meshing well so far."

On the concerns of playing six games in eight days and keeping the players fresh for the game tomorrow.
"We're going to be great tomorrow. We're going to feel great. Our players do a nice job of taking care of their bodies and our training staff is fantastic. Our bench is deep and we're going to play some kids tomorrow to give our players that have been taking a lot of swings some rest. That's nice to have. We have kids on the bench that could be doing very similar things as our starters and we need to find some opportunities in matches because we're going to need that in the season. We need some depth. So if someone is not performing, someone else who is ready can step in."

Senior Opposite Joslyn Hayes
On playing in front of the home crowd
"It's always super fun to play in front of your home crowd. I think that we can always do better, and there were some times when we knew we weren't playing at our best level, so that can be frustrating; but we just have to regroup and do what we know."

On the balance of the team, moving forward
"It should be very important. Our setter, Brynna, does a great job of spreading the offense, and the more each person contributes, the less one person has to take on. Moving forward that is extremely important."

On avenging the Rice loss from two years ago
"Coming back we knew, and especially the older girls knew, this isn't a joke. We are here to win."

On the attitude and expectations for the team this year
"We definitely have higher expectations than we did in the past. It is less of a surprise because we know our potential. I think we have very high expectations for ourselves."

Junior middle blocker Naghede Abu
On playing in front of the home crowd
"Just like Joslyn said, it's always great to play in front of your home crowd, but we can always play better."

On the attitude and expectations for the team this year:
"We can be a really great team when we play well, but when we play terrible, we can be a very terrible team. Our main focus this year has been limiting our mistakes, and staying consistent with what we know we can do and executing."

Volleyball Records Second Sweep of the Day, Defeats Rice

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Team Stats

Alexa Smith

Naghede Abu

Joslyn Hayes

Anna Pfefferle

Players Mentioned

Naghede Abu

Gabby Carta-Samuels

Brynna DeLuzio

Joslyn Hayes

Anna Pfefferle

Frankie Shebby

Alexa Smith

Players Mentioned

Naghede Abu

Gabby Carta-Samuels

Brynna DeLuzio

Joslyn Hayes

Anna Pfefferle

Frankie Shebby

Alexa Smith