Allison (Walker) Baker’s career-high 29 kills were enough to propel the Idaho volleyball team to victory over Texas-San Antonio Saturday night in a 3-1 win.
Jesse Hart | Argonaut
Senior Alex Sele, spikes the ball over UTSA outside hit- ter Kylie Schott. The Vandals erased a first-set loss to beat UTSA 3-1 Saturday in Memorial Gym.
Baker has been the go-to hitter for Idaho all year, but her hitting percentage has suffered as a result, being in the .100’s much of the season. On Saturday, Baker was hitting on all cylinders, sporting a .329 percentage on 73 attempts. She added 10 digs to her total for her 11th double-double of the season.
“I was really just focusing on getting me better,” Baker said. “I wasn’t happy with my .100 percentages, but just swinging higher and seeing my blockers better and just going after the ball.”
The Vandals (6-10, 4-2 WAC) are now sitting in third place in the conference standings behind Utah State and New Mexico State. Idaho looked shaky at the start of the conference season, but has since won three straight matches. The Vandals will have a chance to extend their streak on the road this week when they travel to Seattle University on Friday.
Idaho coach Debbie Buchanan said the win was big for the team going forward.
“It’s huge,” Buchanan said. “We keep getting challenged and we’re still trying to get into our own as far as can we play in a good rhythm and just play solid volleyball and not take a step back.”
The Vandals started off slow and let UTSA build a solid lead in the first set that Idaho never recovered from, losing the set 25-20.
“We started out a little down,” Baker said. “We came out and we fought and we played great. We played as a team and that’s all you can hope.”
The turning point of the match came in the second set when the Roadrunners pushed the Vandals to the limit. Idaho had multiple opportunities to close out the set, but UTSA kept fighting back. Finally, the Vandals were able to deliver the final blow to take the set 28-26. Idaho took the momentum for the close win in the second and went on a 9-1 run to start the third set. After that, the Vandals seemed to build more and more momentum, running away with the next two sets to claim the 3-1 victory.
“We got some momentum in game two and got better with each game, and I think we slowly broke them down,” Buchanan said. “I don’t think they expected us to keep getting better as the match went on. So I think we did a great job.”
The Vandals out-blocked the Roadrunners 14-8 and out-hit them .229-.195 as a team.
Baker said the three-match win-streak has been a confidence booster for the team and will hopefully generate more wins coming up.
“It’s really good for us,” Baker said. “Hopefully we can play with more confidence and just know that we can win.”
Kevin Bingaman can be reached at [email protected]