With less than a month left until the Western Athletic Conference Volleyball Tournament, the Utah Tech University women’s volleyball team is making its final push to the playoffs.
The team’s final run through the WAC has been marked with dominance, as through the first five conference games, they only lost a combined total of two sets. They lead the WAC in kills across the season despite having the second-fewest number of sets played at 72. Senior outside hitter Kennedi Knudsen currently leads the conference at a whopping 261 kills.
Since Oct. 18, the Trailblazers have lost two of their last three games to Utah Valley University and the University of Texas, Arlington, without Knudsen, who was sidelined due to injury.
Head coach Camilla Hafoka said they are taking it one day at a time to see if she can return in time for the WAC tournament.
Before Nov. 2’s game against rival Southern Utah University, the Trailblazers were looking to bounce back and prepare for the final four games of the regular season.
“I think it’s just focusing on the controllables,” Hafoka said when asked about what the team was looking to improve on from the previous game. “‘How do I do [my role] and how do I do it well?’”
Mya Laufiso, libero and junior communication studies major from West Jordan, expressed a similar sentiment, saying how focusing on themselves helped the team find their rhythm again.
“We were focused on getting back to playing our game,” said Casidy Fried, a senior middle blocker and individualized studies major from Middleton, Idaho. “We’re focusing on how to respond.”
UT stood in second place in the WAC standings and had swept SUU in their first conference game back in September. In that game, the Trailblazers held the T-Birds to less than 20 points in each set.
History repeated itself as the Trailblazers’ front row stifled the T-Birds’ attackers in the first and second sets, which ended 25-16 and 25-15 in UT’s favor. The third set stayed close until the Trailblazers pulled ahead and completed the sweep 25-19. It was UT’s 10th sweep of the season.
Fried led the Trailblazer block party, tallying six blocks alongside a service ace. Sophomore Emery Harrison led the offense with nine kills, and Laufiso anchored the defense with 18 digs.
Hafoka spoke on going back to the basics in order to stay focused this late in the season. She said doing those things well will help them do the bigger, more important things later.
“We’ve been focusing on staying disciplined,” said Fried. “Just focusing on doing our jobs and doing them consistently.”
Laufiso said this about how to combat the late season fatigue: “It can be hard to stay locked in being this late in the season, so always looking outside of yourself and pushing for your team, playing for your team, and just showing up every day in practice.”
With three weeks left in the regular season, the Trailblazers now look ahead to California Baptist University in Riverside Nov. 8 before capping off the regular season with two final home games against Tarleton State University and UT Arlington in two weeks.
