Oct. 8, 2014
This Week:
Thurs., Oct. 9 Utah State Logan, Utah 7:00 p.m. MDT
Sat., Oct. 11 Boise State Boise, Idaho 2:00 p.m. MDT
SPARTANS CONTINUE ROAD TRIP WITH STOPS IN UTAH, IDAHO: The San José State volleyball team continues its time on the road this week with matches at Utah State on Thursday and at Boise State on Saturday. The Spartans begin the week with a 3-13 overall record and 0-3 in the Mountain West Conference.
MOUNTAIN WEST DIGITAL NETWORK: This week's matches will be streamed live on the Mountain West Digital Network at
www.SJSUSpartans.com/videos and www.TheMW.com.
LIVE STATS: Live stats for both matches are available on the San José State website at www.SJSUSpartans.com.
ABOUT UTAH STATE: The Aggies enter Thursday night's match with a 6-8 overall record and a 2-2 Mountain West mark, tied for fourth in the conference standings with Wyoming. The team split a pair of road matches last week, losing at New Mexico, 3-2, last Thursday, and winning at Air Force, 3-2, last Saturday. Head coach Grayson DuBose has a 139-117 record at the school in nine years. Rachel Orr leads the team with 196 kills, 3.27 ps, while Kaitlyn VanHoff is the team leader in blocks with 81, 1.35 ps.
San José State leads the all-time series, 19-15-1. Utah State won both meetings last season, 3-0. The Spartans swept the Aggies 3-0 at home on Nov. 10, 2012.
ABOUT BOISE STATE: The Broncos enter the week with an 8-8 overall record and 1-3 Mountain West mark. The team hosts Nevada Thursday night before the Spartans play at Bronco Gym on Saturday. Bronco head coach Shawn Garus has an 84-88 record in six seasons at the helm of the program. Sierra Nobley leads the team with 211 kills, 3.77 per set, while Maddy O'Donnell is the team leader in blocks with 49, 1.04 ps.
San José State holds a 16-10 advantage in the all-time series, but Boise State has won the past seven meetings. The Spartans last won in the series during the 2008 season when the team went to Boise and won 3-0, on October 9, 2008.
HEAD COACH Jolene Shepardson: Spartan head coach Jolene Shepardson is in her first season at the helm of the program. She came to San José State from Bakersfield where she turned a 0-31 team in 2010 to a 21-12 team in 2013.
MOUNTAIN WEST SEASON UNDERWAY: Mountain West play begins its third week. #7 Colorado State and New Mexico are the only undefeated teams left with identical 4-0 records.
San José State fell in its first three conference matches of the season. The Spartans lost to New Mexico, 0-3, and Air Force, 1-3, at home the first week and 0-3 at Fresno State last Saturday.
SPARTANS GO 3-1 IN CHICAGO: San José State picked up its first wins of the season at the Chicago State Tournament. The team defeated South Dakota State in five sets, Chicago State in four sets and swept UMass Lowell.
ROY'S BEST HITTING MATCH: Tyanna Roy had her best hitting match of her Spartan career against Air Force on September 27. She lead all hitters with a career-best 23 kills, her first 20+ kill match. Roy hit a career-best .408 (23-3-49).
HIBBS MAKES IMPACT IN WINDY CITY: Freshman Sara Hibbs helped lead the Spartans to a 3-1 record at the Chicago State Tournament on Sept. 19-20. She led the team in kills in three of the four matches played and was named to the all-tournament team.
For the weekend, Hibbs averaged 3.60 kills and 0.53 blocks per set. She had a season-best 21 kills in the five-set win over South Dakota State. She hit .324 for the weekend including .393 against Chicago State (15-4-28).
ROY LEADS THE HITTERS: Tyanna Roy leads the team with 184 kills, 3.23 per set. She has recorded double-digit kills in nine matches including 23 in a home match against Air Force.
DIGGIN' THE BALL: Yavianliz Rosado leads the Spartans in digs with227, 3.98 per set. She recorded 26 digs in the win over South Dakota State and has had double-digit digs in 10 matches including 20 or more digs in four matches. She is also second on the team with 13 service aces.
PIEPER CLOSING IN ON TOP-10 IN DIGS: Kiely Pieper begins the week with 934 career digs. She is just 44 digs short of entering the top-10 all-time at San José State. Jessie Shull is the all-time leader with 2,260 digs during her four years (2003-06).
TWO HITTERS, 20+ KILLS IN SAME MATCH: Twice this season, two San José State hitters have recorded 20 or more digs in a match. Against South Dakota State on September 19, Sara Hibbs had 21 kills, while Nandyala Gama recorded 20 kills in the win.
Last weekend, Tyanna Roy had a career-best 23 kills against Air Force, and Gama again added 20 kills.
UP NEXT: The Spartans return home for two Mountain West matches. The team hosts UNLV on Thursday, October 16, and San Diego State on Saturday, October 18. Both matches begin at 6 p.m., inside Spartan Gym, located on the corner of Fourth and San Carlos Streets.