It was a rough outing for the Arizona Wildcats as they were
swept by the Colorado Buffaloes Saturday in Boulder, Colo.
The Buffaloes won the first set easily with a 25-14 victory
after starting the match off with an eight-to-two run.
The Wildcats would start the second set on a 3-0 run and put
up more of a fight, before falling to Colorado 25-23. The Buffaloes would then close out the match with a 25-19
victory despite Arizona’s best efforts. Colorado also sweeps the season series
as the Buffaloes defeated Arizona three sets to one when they came to Tucson
last.
Penina Snuka led the Wildcats attack with 28 assists while
and three digs on .182 hitting, while the Wildcats only hit 143. as a whole.
Kalei Mau led the team in scoring with 13 points and Tyler Spriggs added 11
points and three blocks on a career high .471.
Halli Amaro ended up with two blocks to give her 401 for her
career. Amaro is the seventh player in Arizona history to reach that plateau.
With this defeat, Arizona falls to 17-11 and 7-8 in conference
play. The loss could potentially drop them out of the top 25 altogether as they
are the only ranked team with double-digit losses in the top 25.
The Buffaloes seem to be gaining momentum as they leave the
desert defeating both Arizona schools in the top 25. This win gives them their
third upset over a top 25 team as they also defeated 12th ranked
Stanford back on October 18th.
While the Wildcats have done a good job this season in
beating opponents as they should, the Wildcats loss to Colorado marks the
second time the UA has lost to an unranked team. Both time the team happened to
be Colorado.
The Wildcats return to McKale Center on Friday to play three
of their last four games and they have their work cut out for them as all of
their home opponents coming up are in the top 25. First off, second ranked USC
comes to the McKale Center followed by UCLA.
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