Thunderbirds Fall In Matchup Against Weber State

Southern Utah played their first of two road games this week versus Weber State. After a close first set, the Wildcats pulled away to win the match in three sets.

To begin the match, Weber State jumped ahead to a sizable 15-9 lead. However, a well-placed timeout from Coach Choate helped swing the momentum in favor of the Thunderbirds. A couple errors from the wildcats and two straight aces from Kacie Huntsman helped Southern Utah come back and tie things up at 19-19.

Things stayed neck and neck until the score was once again tied up at 21-21. Then, a couple kills from outside hitter Megan Gneiting of Weber State proved to be the difference in the set.

Weber State won the first set 25-22.

From this point on, the Wildcats really started to pick things up. Even another high-efficiency night from MaCail Evans who recorded seven kills, zero errors, and a .500 hitting percentage wasn’t enough for Southern Utah to slow them down in the end.

Weber State went on to take each of the next two sets 25-14 to win the match.

Macky Fifita and Janet Kalaniuvalu put solid numbers on offense and defense. Fifta led the team defensively with 11 digs and 4 kills. Kalniuvalu recorded six kills along with seven digs.

In their next match, the Thunderbirds will be looking to pick up their first conference win of the year against the Bengals of Idaho State. The match will begin at 7 p.m. MT at Reed Gym in Pocatello, Idaho.

A live stream of Saturday’s match will be on PlutoTV. An app can be downloaded to access PlutoTV programming, or you can visit pluto.tv/watch. All Thunderbird home programming will be available on channel 236.

Live stats will be available on suutbirds.com prior to the start of the match

For any and all Thunderbird volleyball news, follow them on Twitterand Instagram along with liking them on Facebook.

Story By
SUU Athletic Strategic Communications