LARAMIE, Wyo. (Sept. 19, 2022) – The Wyoming Cowgirl volleyball team opens Mountain West play Tuesday evening as the Cowgirls travel to face Border Rival Colorado State at 7 p.m. The Rams are the defending Mountain West Co-Champions from 2021 along with Utah State.
Wyoming (4-8) is coming off winning 2-of-3 matches last week at the UniWyo Invite, the Cowgirls' second home tournament of 2022. UW swept both Morehead State and Nicholls State September 15 before losing in four against Idaho. With its two sweeps last week, the Cowgirls improved to 3-1 in 2022 in three-set matches.
Behind the strength of her 10 kills in the win over Morehead, KC McMahon eclipsed 1,000 kills for her career, becoming the 13th member of the exclusive club. McMahon led the Cowgirls at the tournament with 38 kills (3.8 per set) while hitting .397. Tierney Barlow and Sarah Holcomb added 25 and 24 kills, respectively.
Barlow, who hit an even .500 in the three matches, now ranks fourth in the Mountain West in hitting percentage, coming in at a .336 clip. Holcomb, meanwhile, recorded a career-high 12 kills in the win over the Eagles. Kayla Mazzocca recorded 14 total blocks Thursday and Friday, and now ranks 6th in the league averaging 1.02 blocks per set. Kasia Partyka and Hailey Zuroske continue to rank amongst the league-leaders as Partyka is third averaging 9.38 assists per set while Zuroske's 4.0 digs a set is fourth-best.
Colorado State is led by longtime Head Coach, Tom Hilbert, who is in his 26th season leading the Rams in 2022. CSU, who shared the regular season league title in 2021, is led by a pair of attackers with more than 100 kills. All-Mountain West honoree Kennedy Stanford has 122 kills while Karina Leber is at 112. Setter Ciera Pritchard, who was also an all-league performer in 2021, is averaging 9.03 assists per set this season and is engineering a Rams offense that is hitting .260 as a team and is averaging 12.21 kills per set. Defensively, Kate Yoshimoto is averaging a team-best 3.55 digs per set while Annie Sullivan has a team-leading 31 total blocks. Jacqi Van Liefde's 0.95 blocks per set leads Colorado State.
Wyoming is 6-3 in conference-openers under Head Coach Chad Callihan. Callihan is 103-57 and has a .644 winning percentage in Mountain West contests while with the Brown and Gold. Both conference marks, are the best all-time for a head coach in program history.
-WYO-
