No. 21 Colorado State dominates Wyoming in Border War

The message was sent, loud and clear.

The CSU volleyball team flexed its muscles Tuesday night, showing its not going to be easy to wrestle the Mountain West crown away from Fort Collins.

Wyoming entered Moby Arena as the second-best team in the conference, hoping to show it could contend for a conference title.

That could still happen, but Colorado State University made a statement in a 3-0 (25-21, 25-19, 25-9) win in front of 2,728 fans as the Rams are still perfect in their bid for a seventh-straight MW title.

“I want to officially say I don’t think we got Wyoming’s ‘A’ game here. I think our players probably know it and I like to think we had something to do with it,” CSU coach Tom Hilbert said. “I don’t want to take any credit away from my players. I think we played a very, very good game in a lot of areas.”

The No. 21-ranked Rams (13-3, 6-0 MW) won the first set comfortably.

Then in the second set Wyoming (15-4, 5-2 MW) started showing why it is receiving votes in the AVCA coaches poll.

The visitors jumped out to a 13-8 lead using a block that’s one of the best in the country. Wyoming had four blocks early in the set, but then CSU battled back.

A six-point scoring run with Cassidy Denny serving tough put the Rams in control.

After the intermission came the statement. The teams traded points until CSU took a 4-3 lead. Then all the dominoes started to fall.

Shot after shot fell in. Seemingly every Wyoming attack was blocked or dug by CSU. The Rams had five blocks in the set alone as they held Wyoming under double-digit points, with the Cowgirls looking more shellshocked with each point.

For the match CSU out-blocked the 11th-ranked blocking team in the nation 9-8. Wyoming hit .079 for the match while CSU hit .317.

With Wyoming’s defensive strategy, Hilbert told his team the outside hitters would need to have a good match.

They responded. Adrianna Culbert had 12 kills and hit .526, Alex Reid and Jasmine Hanna had nine each as the Rams won their eighth match in a row.

For CSU, there’s no feeling quite like dominating a good Wyoming team to create some separation atop the Mountain West standings.

“I think it’s super easy to take a step back after you’re up two sets,” Reid said. “Instead of us relaxing, we really went out there and we’re like ‘let’s show this team what we have.’ It was fun because everyone was on their ‘A’ game…I think this is the best we’ve played all-together this entire season.”

Culbert sets CSU record

With 12 kills, 18 assists and 10 digs, Culbert now stands alone atop CSU’s career triple-doubles standings.

She now has five career triple-doubles, breaking the record of four held by Angela Knopf, who was in attendance Tuesday night. All five of Culbert’s triple-doubles have come this season, four of them happening in three-set matches.

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

No. 21 CSU 3, Wyoming 0

At Moby Arena

Wyoming 21 19 9 — 0 CSU 25 25 25 — 3

•Attendance: 2,728

•Next up: CSU at San Jose State, 2 p.m. Saturday

•Watch: TheMW.com/videos