CU serves off home Spring ball with win over Northern Colorado

The Colorado Buffaloes volleyball team looked to be in mid-season form in a scrimmage against the Northern Colorado Bears over the weekend. The Buffs won all four sets of the match. (Photo via Cogan Nguyen/Sko Buffs Sports)

The Colorado Buffaloes volleyball team returned home from a three-game preseason trip to Colorado Springs to host the Northern Colorado Bears in a four-set practice match. Colorado closed the match out by winning all four sets after a 27-25 comeback win in the first set.

The Buffaloes are looking to clean up their semi-disappointing season from last year. After finishing 10th out of 15th in the Big 12 at 13-17 (6-12 Big 12), there was mostly progress to be made. 

Over the offseason, CU brought in three players to help fill the missing spot in which Taylor Simpson played the last couple of years in Nikki Ott, Audrey Asleson and Inés Losada Gordaliza. But against the Bears, the Buffs started with a very similar lineup to last season. 

Colorado started the practice match with all five returning starters, including Maria Splawska as the sixth player. Splawska didn’t see much court time at the beginning of the year, but as the year went on, she showed her potential.

Ana Burilovic started and flourished on Saturday, putting up a performance that was nothing short of her Second Team All-Big 12 season last year.

The Buffs looked better than they did at the end of the season, winning all four practice sets against the Bears with scores of 27-25, 25-16, 25-22 and 25-21.

The first set started with CU losing the first point and quickly falling behind 6-2 before Burilovic knocked over two points to get the Buffs back on their feet. Colorado used its momentum from that to propel through the rest of the first game and find themselves leading 19-9 in the second game. 

The Buffs were able to close out the second set on the backs of a dominant late-set performance from Burilovic and Splawska.

The third and fourth sets saw much more time from backups and newcomers. Returning contributors Cayla Payne and Katie Salonga got into the game, and so did freshman outside hitter Gwen Schiff and sophomore setter Rian Finley. 

Overall, the Buffaloes showed potential for a good season ahead, but showed problems that were similar to last year's, as a couple of miscommunications and service errors can cause the Buffs to find themselves down in a 5-0 run.

For a good year, Colorado will need to sharpen up on their backline and endure proper rotations to prevent easy points. The Buffaloes are stacked at outside hitter and have several players who are able to kill a play on a spike at any given moment. CU will need to find ways not to rely on opponent mistakes like service errors to get points. 

The Buffs travel to Fort Collins for a preseason Rocky Mountain Showdown on April 19th. First serve is scheduled for 11 a.m. MST.