The Weber State University volleyball team lost in four sets to Sacramento State University on Saturday evening. The Wildcats came from behind with 15 straight points and won the second set.

[media-credit name=”Crystal Charriere” align=”alignright” width=”286″][/media-credit]Head Coach Tom Peterson said it was disappointing for the team to not be able to play every aspect of the game for the entire game.

“It’s disappointing when we can do one thing well for a while, but the other parts of our game, we can’t string together for very long,” he said.

In the first set, the Hornets got an early lead of 12-3. The Hornets maintained that lead, but let WSU come back within four at set. The Hornets won the first set 25-20.

WSU ended the first set with a negative attack percentage, only scoring on four of the 31 attempts. SSU had 13 successful kills. The Hornets out-dug WSU, 21-14 in the first set.

WSU pulled out the victory in the second set with a score of 25-21. Early in the second set, things looked grim for the Wildcats when they were down 19-6. WSU came back with 15 straight points to take the lead at 20-19. They then finished out the match, only allowing SSU to score two more points.

The third set was taken by SSU with a score 25-18. WSU showed no improvement on their attack percentages, only scoring 9 of 29 attempts.

Up until the fourth set, SSU was showing better statistics in every category but three. SSU had 120 attack attempts, 33 kills, 32 assists and 48 digs. WSU only had 99 attack attempts, 20 kills, 19 assists and 44 digs. WSU did prove to be better in errors, serving aces and blocks. The Wildcats ended the third set with 27 errors, seven serving aces and 18 blocks while the Hornets had 29 errors, five serving aces and five blocks.

The team needs to put on a show for the crowd so that they will not leave as disappointed as the players have been, Peterson said.

“We appreciate the crowd’s support, but we have to give them more than what they are seeing,” he said.

WSU lost the fourth set by the largest deficit of that game so far with a score of 25-12. WSU and SSU each committed 34 errors throughout the entire game. SSU had 45 kills to WSU’s 26. SSU’s Eryn Kirby had a double-double with 20 kills and 13 digs. WSU’s Bethany Wray had 16 digs, but Shelby Earl was close behind with 13. WSU also ended every single match in negative attack percentages.

WSU also broke two records with 18 team blocks in the third set and 20.5 team blocks in the fourth. The season high for team blocks is 20.5.

Team Captain Caitlin Penrod said that the team is not affected by the other teams and how they play. She said the team will start winning because it has changed and started to play together.

“It’s up to us when we want to compete and when we want to turn it on,” Penrod said. “When we decide to turn it on, we are going to soar.”

Penrod said she thinks there are a lot of things the Wildcats need to work on, but she also said she has faith that everything will work out.

“There are so many things we need to do and get better at, but when we start playing together, everything else will fall into place,” Penrod said.

The Wildcats will play the University of Montana and Montana State University this weekend as they continue Big Sky Conference play.