Colorado State Sweeps San Diego State in First Semifinal Match of MWC Volleyball Tournament

Jaime Strauss led all attackers with 16 kills, while hitting .375.

Jaime Strauss
Women's Volleyball Home HEADLINES Mountain West Conference Announces Volleyball Player of the Week MWC Volleyball Scoreboard - Nov. 21, 2009 MWC Volleyball Scoreboard - Nov. 20, 2009 RELATED LINKS • Follow all of the college volleyball action at CollegeSports.com • Email this to a friend

Nov. 24, 2006

CLICK HERE for more information on the MWC Volleyball Tournament.

LAS VEGAS - The third-seeded Colorado State Rams (19-9) earned their way back to the championship match of the Mountain West Volleyball Tournament on Friday afternoon with a 3-0 sweep of the seventh-seeded San Diego State Aztecs (11-18) at the Cox Pavilion in Las Vegas. This will be the sixth trip for CSU into the finale of the tournament and the first since 2004. CSU will face the winner of the 4:00 pm semifinal between the top-seeded Utah Utes and the fourth-seeded UNLV Rebels. The Rams won the match with game-scores of 30-21, 30-25, 30-16.

The Rams offense was too much for the Aztec defense to handle as CSU hit .331 for the match. The high-octane offensive was fueled by a .528 output in game one and .343 in the third. In each of those frames the Rams only hit for four errors total. The team had an off game in the second as they hit .189 with seven errors.

No CSU player that notched at least one kill hit worse than .267 in the match. There were five players to hit above the .300 mark with Mekana Barnes leading the way with a .429 on four kills. Jaime Strauss led all attackers with 16 kills, while hitting .375. Katherine Whitney joined Strauss in double-digits in the kill department with 11 of her own. Whitney was also the only player to register a double-double, as she had 16 digs, as well.

Helping out her attackers was Ashley Fornstrom with her 30 assists. Fornstrom fell one dig shy of picking up a double-double as she had nine.

Defensively, Katelin Batten trailed Whitney in digs with 15 of her own. Amanda Fahnestock blocked back one solo attack and assisted on five others. Strauss put back four assisted blocks.

The Aztecs offense only hit for .099 percentage with two games coming in under the .100 mark. SDSU hit above .100 once and that was in the first game with a .179.

SDSU was led offensively by Melanie Greene's 10 kills. Kristen Castillo and Leah Lathrop split setting duties as Castillo dished out 14 helpers to Lathrop's 14. Aime Cordeiro led all defensive players in digs with 19, while Greene added 13 digs to her 10 kills for a double-double.