Idaho defeated Boise State, Utah State beat Nevada and Fresno State swept San Jose State in the final WAC matches of the season to set the seeds for next week's WAC Tournament. Nevada earned the No. 4-seed, Fresno State is No. 5 and Boise State is the sixth-seed.
Idaho 3, Boise State 0
Idaho's four seniors led the Vandals to a sweep of Boise State in their Senior Night match at Memorial Gym Thursday. Anna McKinney set a new Idaho record for single-season block assists as the Vandals (15-14, 11-5) rounded out the regular season with a 25-16, 25-18, 25-20 victory over the visiting Broncos (7-21, 7-9).
As a team, the Vandals finished with 37 kills and a .204 hitting percentage while holding the Broncos to 29 kills and a .040 percentage. Idaho also held a 42-38 advantage in digs and tallied six service aces. The nation-leading Vandals totaled 15 blocks to push their blocks per set average to 3.26.
McKinney tallied nine block assists and one solo block to end the regular season with 159 block assists and break a record held since 1993. The previous record of 155 was held by Nancy Wicks. Debbie Pederson ended the match with 152 block assists on the season.
Idaho's other three seniors filled the stat sheet, as well. Sarah Conwell tallied 16 kills and two service aces while hitting .293 and Meredith Rice finished with a match-high 19 digs. Pederson totaled five kills, five blocks and two aces, while McKinney also added five kills to her blocking totals.
Alisha King paced the Broncos with 10 kills, while Kersti Whitney tallied 13 digs.
Utah State 3, Nevada 1
Liz McArthur had 21 kills and eight digs to lead Utah State to a four-set win (24-26, 26-24, 25-16, 25-19) over Nevada Thursday night. USU ends its season with a 15-14 record, including a 6-10 mark in the WAC following the win. Nevada falls to 11-19 overall and 7-9 in league play with the loss.
Utah State hit .312 on the match, compared to the .207 of Nevada. USU also had four more service aces (9-5), 2.5 more team blocks (10.5-8.0) and two more digs (45-43) in the match, while UN had two fewer service errors (7-5).
Chelsea Fowles had 45 assists, five kills, seven digs and three service aces for Utah State, and hit .833 in the match, while Shanell Durrant added eight kills on .583 hitting. Katie Astle added nine kills and seven block assists, while Emily Kortsen also had nine kills to go along with five block assists.
Kylie Harrington had 16 kills to lead Nevada and Elissa Ji added 12 kills.
Fresno State 3, San Jose State 0
Fresno State picked up its 14th win of the season and seventh WAC win with a 3-0 sweep over San Jose State on Thursday night at Spartan Gym. Set scores were 25-23, 27-25 and 25-15. The 14 overall wins are the most regular-season win since 2004, while the seven WAC wins are the most wins in the league by a Bulldog team since 2003.
With the Bulldog win and a 3-0 win for Idaho over Boise State, the `Dogs clinched the fifth seed in next week's WAC Tournament. Enough though Nevada lost in four sets at Utah State, they earned the fourth seed by virtue of head-to-head competition and will face the `Dogs Monday night in the first round.
Brianna Clarke and Kelli Parker led Fresno State with seven kills apiece. Allanah Munson had 15 assists, while Lisa Gera added 14. Kelly Mason had 17 digs. The `Dogs had 14.0 total blocks, one shy of the school record for blocks in a three-set match.
Kylie Miraldi led the Spartans with 11 kills