Steinhaus Leads Buffs Past Mustangs

BOULDER— Sophomore redshirt Rosie Steinhaus hammered a career-high 14 kills to lead the University of Colorado volleyball team past Cal Poly 25-19, 28-26 and 26-24.

“Tonight’s match was huge for a lot of reasons.” head coach Liz Kritza said.  “One is coming off playing a quality opponent last night (No. 24 San Diego).  Also being able to take a young team and refocus them, and make them understand that if you play at a high level consistently, then what happened tonight will happen more often.” 

The win moved the Buffs to 5-4 overall while Cal Poly falls to 2-8. This is the 21st straight season Colorado has finished the non-conference season with a winning record. CU has hit some tough patches this season, but is finding ways to overcome those obstacles and win.

“For us it’s really about understanding about how the game is played at the highest level,” Kritza said. “We’re running a system and training them in a way that will allow them to play with the best teams in the country.  They have to understand that our first contact is paramount.  We have to make sure that we are in system so then we can keep pace.  That’s the way this game is played. 

“You have to be able to score and side out.  I think we need improvement on our side out area, and we also need to continue improving with serving.  We’re going to be a smaller team when we are matched up against the majority of the conference.  That doesn’t mean that we can’t beat them.  It means that we have to be more intelligent and more aggressive in the way we play the game to be successful. “

                Earlier in the day, No. 24 San Diego defeated Cal Poly in four sets (25-20, 25-19, 20-25, 25-21). San Diego won the tournament with a perfect 4-0 record. Cal Poly was third (1-2) and Denver was fourth (0-3).

Steinhaus had a night to remember against the Mustangs as she hit .379, picked up seven digs and added four block assists. She is serving as one of three captains this season and has steadily been taking more of a leadership role on the team, on and off the court.

“I want to step up and show my team that I can make those plays,” Steinhaus said. “As a captain, I want to be the person that my team is counting on when the game is on the line. “

Sophomore Becah Fogle added 13 kills and also had seven digs. Both she and Steinhaus were named to the all-tournament team and the Buffs took second overall with a 2-1 record. No. 24 San Diego went 3-0 to win the invite.

The Buffs hit .220 with 47 kills under the direction of senior Kaitlyn Burkett. She handed out 36 assists and added three errorless kills of her own.

Defensively the Buffs had the advantage as well. They recorded 47 digs to Cal Poly’s 43. Ellen Henry led the team with 11. CU recorded 8.5 total team blocks (17 assists) compared to 5.5 (one solo and nine assists) for the Mustangs. Nikki Kinzer, Alex Penewell and Steinhaus led CU with four block assists.

                The Buffs started out the excitement early as they got out to a 9-7 lead against the Mustangs in the first set. After a quick side out, CU strung together six straight points to take a commanding 15-8 lead. Cal Poly made up some of that ground taking four of the next six points, but the Buffs continued their charge and didn’t allow the Mustangs to string together long runs after that point. CU finished the set 25-19 and hit .312 with 14 kills and only four errors. Meanwhile, the Mustangs recorded a .114 attack percentage and hit .114.

                Unlike the first set, Cal Poly took control of the second set with an 11-7 advantage. The Buffs were having a little more trouble in the set siding out and the Mustangs were capitalizing by putting together runs of three or more points to take a 14-8 lead. At that point, CU turned it on and took six of the next seven to get within a point at 14-15. The Mustangs got to 20 points first but CU tied up the set at 22.

                After allowing the Mustangs to take the next two points, CU fought off the following two set points for the Mustangs and took the lead at 25-24 for its first set point. The two teams sided out the following three points. With the score knotted at 26, the Buffs took the set with a kill from Fogle and a block from Penewell and Burkett.

                Colorado started the third set with the momentum from the first two games. The Buffs took a 14-10 lead but Cal Poly was right back in it with the next three points and eventually took the lead at 17-16. After a CU run of 5-2, the Buffs had a 22-20 lead. The two battled into extra points once again and had the same result for CU, winning this time 26-24.

This is a good win for the program as Cal Poly is typically a ranked team despite their overall record due to a tough non-conference schedule. CU starts conference play this week and this is the caliber team it will be playing. Kritza’s first Big 12 opponent is No. 11/10 Iowa State, which the Buffs will play on Wednesday, Sept. 14 in Ames, Iowa at 5:30 p.m. (MST). After that they will face No. 5/6 Nebraska and No. 2 Texas.  

                “Cal Poly is a very quality team, and this gives us momentum going into Big 12 play,” Kritza said.  “We play the top three teams in the conference right away. For a young team it’s important to have confidence and knowing they can perform at the highest level.”

COLORADO BUFFALOES

Quotes:

Head Coach Liz Kritza

 Tonight’s match was huge for a lot of reasons.  One is coming off playing a quality opponent last night.  Also being able to take a young team and refocus them, and make them understand that if you play at a high level consistently, then what happened tonight will happen more often.  Cal Poly is a very quality team, and this gives us momentum going into Big 12 play.  We start Wednesday against Iowa State.  We play the top three teams in the conference right away. For a young team it’s important to have confidence and knowing they can perform at the highest level.

The team is young, so there are going to be ups and downs.  There are going to be times where they look great, and times where our inexperience shows.  What I like about this team is what they understood from the beginning; that continual improvement is the goal.  If they are continually improving, then the wins will come, and our program will be as successful as we want it to be.  If the quality of work is what they concern themselves with, then winning is the inevitable result.  We understand that early, and we’re going to keep pushing through the rest of the season with that in mind.

 For us it’s really about understanding about how the game is played at the highest level.  We’re running a system and training them in a way that will allow them to play with the best teams in the country.  They have to understand that our first contact is paramount.  We have to make sure that we are in system so then we can keep pace with score.  That’s the way this game is played.  You have to be able to score and side-out.  I think we need improvement on our side-out area, and we also need to continue improving with serving.  We’re going to be a smaller team when we are matched up against the majority of the conference.  That doesn’t mean that we can’t beat them.  It means that we have to be more intelligent and more aggressive in the way we play the game to be successful.

Outside hitter Kerra Schroeder

Everything is a lot faster.  It’s an opportunity to come in as a freshman and contribute.  It’s really intense.  It’s a whole other level from high school.

This weekend I think we did really well because we actually executed our system, and divided our setting routines.  Our passing was a lot better.  We did everything we needed to do to win.

 I think this game and the San Diego game really showed us what we can do.  Both those teams are really good.  I think that shows us how well we can to because we really played well in those first two games against San Diego.  Both of them could have gone either way.

Sophomore Rosie Steinhaus

We came out strong against San Diego and fought really hard.  We learned some things from that loss and put it into action tonight.  I thought we came out as a team against San Diego, but even more so as a team tonight.  We played great tonight.

I want to step up and show my team that I can make those plays in those situations.  As a captain, I want to be the person that my team is counting on when the game is on the line.

The Big 12 is going to be really tough. We’re kind of on a slow rise up to where we need to be.  We are progressing, especially this weekend.  We came out against San Diego hard, and we came out tonight even harder.  We want to keep that up.