Utah Upends No. 17 Santa Clara

Friday, September 16

Salt Lake City

7:00 PM

University of Utah

<i>Santa Clara vs. Idaho</i>

9/17/2005 12:00 AM | Volleyball

Sept. 17, 2005

Box Score

SALT LAKE CITY - Crimson Court has not been too friendly to teams that come in with a national ranking. And, tonight was no different as Shelly Sommerfeldt led the University of Utah volleyball team to a 3-2 victory over the No. 17-ranked Santa Clara Broncos tonight.

"We talked about playing with confidence for the entire match tonight," remarked head coach Beth Launiere. "We knew that if we went out there and worked hard that things would happen for us.

"It's nice to be at home. The fans and Crimson Court make the difference for us, especially with such a young team."

Game scores were 22-30, 30-20, 30-27, 28-30 and 15-13. Utah wins the Hampton Inn Utah classic in improving to 7-3 for the year. Santa Clara earns its first blemish as it stumbles to 7-1.

Sommerfeldt was named tournament MVP as she had yet another double-double with a match-high 22 kills and a team-best 15 digs. Also honored were Lacey Lavarias and Kathryn Lovell with all-tournament nods.

Three other Utes led the attack in the upset victory as Airial Salvo and Lovell tacked on 14 kills, and Lori Baird racked up 11. All four hit around the .300 mark for the match with Salvo leading with .346.

Shannon Krug set the attack in guiding the team to a smooth .275 hitting average. She racked up a career-high 64 assists.

Utah held the edge at the net 10.5-9 and was led by Baird's five blocks, three of them were solos. Salvo and Lavarias each recorded 11 digs.

Utah had to rally from poor hitting percentages in games one (.152) and three (.175) but did so in fine fashion. In the three victories, Utah never hit worse than .306, including a blistering .529 in the decisive game five. Some could say the turning point came in game three when it looked like Santa Clara had the game in the bag. With the Broncos leading, 25-19, the Utes regrouped to stun the visitors in rattling off an 11-2 run to steal the victory, the momentum and build confidence.

Anna Cmaylo was outstanding for the Broncos in the loss. She hit .486 (20 kills, three errors and 25 swings) and didn't register a hitting error until late in the third game. Crystal Matich dished out a team-high 61 assists while Brittany Lowe led the way with 19 digs. Two SCU spikers collected four blocks.

The Utes return to action on Tuesday, Sept. 20, to play at Utah Valley State. Game time is set for 7 p.m.