It seems that when San Diego State plays a top-ranked team, it finds a way to lose.
Monday night’s match against Volleyball Magazine’s No. 10 team, Lewis University, should not have had the same result.
In five games against the Flyers (12-5), the Aztecs jumped out to a fast start, winning the first two games (15-9, 15-7), then went on to drop three straight (15-6, 15-10, 15-10).
SDSU (2-9, 2-8 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) coach Jack Henn sat senior outside-hitter Matt Hyden for the last two games, resting him for the Aztecs’ match against Long Beach.
Henn was more concerned with the league match on Tuesday than the non-league match with Lewis.
“We wanted to play other guys because of Long Beach Tuesday night,” Henn said.
Lewis coach David Deuserr felt that Henn let the match slip away.
“I was worried at the beginning, if we didn’t wake up, that it was going to be a real quick match, and we would be out here,” he said.
Deuserr felt Hyden was on top of his game before he was pulled.
“Hyden was hitting very well against us,” he said. “With him in the match, I don’t know if we (would) pull it out or not.”
The star for the Flyers was junior outside-hitter Victor Rivera, who scorched the Aztecs for a game and a team-leading 39 kills and eight digs, and he had a .415 hit percentage. Rivera was an All-American last year and looks to be one again this year. He is No. 5 in the nation in kills per game with a 6.66 average.
Henn had some praise for Rivera.
“The guy is a great player,” he said. “He has one of the best arm swings I have ever seen.”
Flyers sophomore setter Edgardo Deniz led all players with 87 assists and is ranked No. 4 in the nation in assists per game. Junior middle-blocker Guy Nembhard recorded 14 kills and nine blocks as well.
For SDSU, Hyden was the go-to guy while he was in play, notching 22 kills and an impressive .624 hitting percentage in three games.
Junior middle-blocker Tom Hunter played exceptionally while matching Hyden’s kill count with 22, and tallied nine blocks to lead the team.
Coming off the bench, sophomore setter John Engstrom had 30 assists and a team-leading 1.000 hitting percentage, converting on all four of his attacks.
After Hyden went out, SDSU started to commit a flurry of hitting and service errors. Some of the leadership may have left the floor when Hyden and senior-setter Dustin Cremascoli were benched.
“We were frustrated,” Henn said. “We made some poor decisions at key times, but started playing better and made some plays toward the end.”
Sitting Hyden surely cost the Aztecs the match, Deuserr thought.
“I could feel the momentum start to switch,” he said.
It switched the game from a win to a loss for SDSU. Now, the Aztecs have to focus their attention back on the MPSF and find a way to beat the top-ranked teams within it.
