The Vandal volleyball team continued to play well, and swept San Jose State Saturday in Memorial Gym.
The Vandals (6-8, 1-1 WAC) were coming off a loss to Hawaii, in which they pushed the No. 11 team in the nation, and continued that performance Saturday against the Spartans (5-9, 0-2 WAC). Last year, one of the Spartans’ only three wins was against Idaho. Senior Alicia Milo said it was nice to get some payback.
“I don’t want to say it was revenge, but it’s nice to get a win after they give you some trouble,” Milo said.
The Vandals came out of the gate in the first set on fire, dominating from start to finish on the way to a 25-7 win. It was Idaho’s largest margin of victory since Sept. 12, 2010 when the Vandals beat Montana 25-4.
San Jose State didn’t let Idaho have it so easy in the second set, but in the end the Vandals were too powerful and took a 2-0 lead in the match.
Idaho came out in the third set and put the Spartans away with ease to take the set and complete the sweep. Idaho coach Debbie Buchanan said she liked what she saw out of her team in the third set.
“We went to the break and I told them we can’t have this many hitting errors in one game, we are better than that,” Buchanan said. “We came back out and went from hitting .152 to .382, that’s a huge improvement.”
Sophomore Allison Walker snagged her second consecutive double-double and lead the Vandals with 19 kills. Libero Cassie Hamilton had 20 digs in the match and now is just 10 digs away from moving into second place in Vandal history. Milo said she likes what she is seeing from this team.
“I think we’re pretty solid,” Milo said. “When we’re on we’re really on. We’ve had our ups and downs but I think we have a really good shot.”
Consistency was a big issue for Idaho last year as they struggled to play well from night to night. Buchanan said that she’s starting to see that consistency out of her team right now and hopes it continues.
“I like the way they’re responding,” Buchanan said. “Now it’s just how often and consistent can we be?”
The Vandals will be back on the road this week when they travel to New Mexico State to take on the Aggies. Idaho will then be at Louisiana Tech on Saturday.