courtesy of UNLV Athletics

The UNLV volleyball team claimed its first win in NCAA Tournament competition Friday with a 3-1 triumph (27-25, 25-21, 19-25, 25-20) over the No. 22 Utah Utes at BYU’s Smith Fieldhouse. With the victory, the Rebels advance to the second round and will face the host and No. 10 BYU Cougars (No. 13 national seed), who defeated the Princeton Tigers in straight sets, Saturday at 6:00 pm PT (7:00 pm MT).

The victor of Saturday’s match will advance to the Regional Semifinals on December 9-10. Creighton and No. 12 national seed Michigan have already made plans for the Lone Star State while the winner of SMU-Texas will complete the foursome.

The Rebels (24-7), who are in the midst of their second trip to postseason play, outhit the Utes (20-12) by 52 points (.305 to .253) primarily from a seven-error differential. Both teams attempted 154 attacks; however, UNLV was able to register one more kill (64-63) and commit seven fewer errors (17-24).

The Scarlet & Gray opened the contest with a .425 hitting efficiency backed by 20 kills against three errors in 40 swings. UNLV was able to muster up two more .300-plus sets with a .308 (15-3-39) in the second and a .371 (17-4-35). Unfortunately, the Rebels only hit .125 (12-7-40) in the third, which was won by Utah. The Utes, on the other hand, topped out with a .333 in the first set, but stayed within a range of .143 (second) to .289 (third) the remainder of the bout.

The match was a seesaw affair that featured 35 ties and 11 lead changes. The first and fourth sets held the majority of both figures. The opening stanza had 15 ties and six lead changes while the fourth had 14 and three, respectively. The second and third frames only had one lead change apiece, but there were two ties in the former and four in the latter.

“I think we felt good coming in because we felt our matchups were good,” noted head coach Cindy Fredrick. “We knew that (Adora) Anae would be phenomenal, and she is; but we felt like with everything else, my players could match up to that. I like the fact that I’ve got a 5-1 and a setter (Alexis Patterson) that attacks the ball. I like that we matched up Bree (Hammel) with Anae, because when we went in we said `It’s a battle between you two’. I think that they (UNLV) answered that battle. What I liked was that Sadie (Stutzman) came through with some tremendous, tremendous plays, and Alexis found her and got her open, and thanks to also our middle blockers who did a great job. Sadie took total advantage of that and just used the blockers and put the ball away. I think they (Utah) were so focused on Bree and they wanted to shut her down, but I don’t think they did and everybody else added to that.”

Alexis Patterson paced the Rebels offensively with a double-double that consisted of 49 assists and 11 digs. Patterson also added seven kills off .357 hitting and one solo block.

Bree Hammel and Sadie Stutzman led the Rebel attack with 18 and 14 kills, respectively. The former hit .298 and added two assists to go along with eight digs and seven total blocks (one solo) on the defensive side of the net while the latter hit .375 with two digs and one assisted block.

The offense also go a minimum of seven kills from Caitlin Wernentin (nine), Ashley Owens (eight) and Elsa Descamps (seven). Wernentin chipped in two assists and three assisted blocks to Owens’ four assisted blocks to Descamps’ seven total blocks (one solo) and five digs.

Besides the aforementioned defensive numbers, Elisa Woinowsky had a team-high 15 digs while Laura Butler and Carly Riehl had eight and seven digs, respectively.

The Utes’ offense ran through Adora Anae who combined a match-high 21 kills with 13 digs for a double-double. Carly Trueman (15 kills) and Tawnee Luafalemana (10) also registered double figures in kills. Bailey Choy (29 assists) and Jessie Openshaw (23) split setting duties while teammate Brianna Doehrmann led all with 18 digs.

UNLV is not the only Mountain West squad to continue its season, as the Boise State Broncos — the 2016 league champions — defeated Western Kentucky, 3-0, and will now face No. 3 national seed Stanford Saturday (7:00 pm PT) in the Bay Area. Colorado State, on the other hand, suffered a 3-1 loss to Kentucky in Seattle.