Loyola Marymount knocks CSU out of tournament

STANFORD, Calif. — Remember the confidence and swagger the CSU volleyball team played with the last two months of the season?

The Rams took the court every night like the big dogs on campus, ready to knock down any challengers.

That swagger was on the floor at Maples Pavilion Thursday night in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

But it wasn’t Colorado State University flexing its muscles.

Instead Loyola Marymount was the team strutting with heads held high, and the Lions forced CSU into one of its worst matches of the season, a 3-1 (25-20, 16-25, 25-19, 25-15) loss.

The defeat ends CSU’s season at 26-4 and snaps a 20-match winning streak that dated back to mid-September.

“You can really tell the difference, I feel like, in how strong the West Coast Conference is compared to the Mountain West,” CSU coach Tom Hilbert said after the match. “Those guys were not intimidated by us, even though physically we were out-playing them for the first part of the match. That didn’t matter.”

The Rams walked off the floor and later out of the locker room in California with plenty of tears but also wide-eyed shock.

They played so well for so long this season and were so sure they could make an NCAA tournament run.

But Loyola Marymount (23-8) ended those dreams. The Lions played outstanding in controlling the first set.

CSU dominated the second set to go to intermission tied 1-1, and it looked like the Rams had righted things and were back to their normal ways.

LMU led the third early, with CSU seeming unable to cut a one- to three-point gap. Finally the Rams tied it at 17. But then the momentum was gone.

LMU won five points in a row to help win the set then cruised in the fourth set. The win came via LMU doing everything well.

“I definitely think they surprised us. When we scouted them we didn’t expect them to come out with such firepower. They played well,” CSU senior outside hitter Alex Reid said. “They have a lot of hitters that hit with a lot of power and have really fast arm swings. We just couldn’t take care of that.”

LMU had four players with eight or more kills. CSU outhit LMU (.237 to .220) and out-blocked the Lions (12-7), but the Rams had 10 serving errors and zero aces. LMU had seven aces to 12 errors.

The Rams were led by 15 kills from Reid and 12 from Alexandra Poletto. CSU’s offense never really clicked outside of the second set, and LMU’s offense was consistent.

“We just didn’t have a lot of answers for it,” senior Adrianna Culbert said. “We knew they were going to be fast, but I didn’t think they were going to be as fast as consistently as they were.”

LMU advances to the second round to face the winner of host Stanford and New Mexico State. CSU is left to overcome the bitter defeat and third first-round exit in the last four years after making the Sweet 16 last season.

“It’s definitely hard,” Reid said. “We didn’t expect to lose, we didn’t want to lose and I don’t think anyone thought we would be done so soon.”

Follow sports reporter Kevin Lytle at twitter.com/Kevin_Lytle and at facebook.com/KevinSLytle.

Loyola Marymount 3, CSU 1

CSU 20 25 19 15 — 1

LMU 25 16 25 25 — 3