The Colorado Buffaloes (12-9) took on the No. 17 Arizona State Sun Devils (19-3) Sunday afternoon and delivered a surprising upset.
Coming into the game against a top 20 school in the nation, the Buffs had only won two of their last eight games, including a stretch of being swept in two consecutive games prior to their Friday night victory against Arizona. CU was considered the underdog going into the matchup, but they did not let the might of the challenge overwhelm them
The first set started as well as Colorado could have wished as they took a 10-2 lead over Arizona State. However, a quick momentum shift put the Buffs on recovery mode as the Sun Devils made it 19-18, showing why they are ranked 17th in the country. The Buffs were in a position for set point at 24-21, but they allowed the Sun Devils back in to make it a 25-25 game.
Despite the setback, the Buffs pulled through to win that set 27-25, with the set winning point coming off of an Arizona State attack error.
The next two sets played out differently with neither team pulling together any large scoring runs or obvious momentum swings. They were much more even and both teams had to fight hard for any points they got despite the seemingly large gap between the teams, based on records coming into this game.
Despite the challenge of the top tier Sun Devils pulling themselves together, Colorado held on and played some of their best volleyball this year.
“This weekend, and in [this] match is kind of who I feel like we are,” CU head coach Jesse Mahoney said after the game..
Outside hitter Lexi Hadrych capped off a weekend where she put up 32 kills, 16 in each night versus the Arizona schools. She touched on her success with setter Taylor Simpson, saying “Taylor just set everything up perfectly. It was butter, it was so nice. Everything was so smooth. I just went up and hit the ball.”
Against a conference opponent, the Buffs look to improve on a lackluster 4-6 conference record as they return to action against the University of Southern California Trojans on Friday, Oct. 27 at the CU Events Center at 7 p.m. MDT.
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