ASU Volleyball: Offensive switch dooms Sun Devils against Colorado

TEMPE, AZ - OCTOBER 10: Arizona State Sun Devils mascot Sparky performs on the field during the fourth quarter of the college football game against the Colorado Buffaloes at Sun Devil Stadium on October 10, 2015 in Tempe, Arizona. (Photo by Chris Coduto/Getty Images)
TEMPE, AZ - OCTOBER 10: Arizona State Sun Devils mascot Sparky performs on the field during the fourth quarter of the college football game against the Colorado Buffaloes at Sun Devil Stadium on October 10, 2015 in Tempe, Arizona. (Photo by Chris Coduto/Getty Images)

Colorado took advantage of ASU volleyball‘s new plan of attack to sneak out a victory in Tempe on Sunday afternoon.

Although the serving was much improved, there wasn’t a lot that went well for the Sun Devils in yesterday’s match.

ASU managed eight more kills than the Buffaloes, but it came down to a significant amount of errors for the Sun Devils that gave Colorado (12-9, 4-6 Pac-12) the four-set victory.

ASU (13-9, 4-6 Pac-12) committed 27 attack errors and couldn’t seem to get past the Colorado front line that dominated the game.

The Buffaloes had 13 total blocks on the game and racked up ten by the second set. The player that gave ASU the most fits was Naghede Abu, who contributed on seven of the team’s blocks.

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The game plan Sonja Tomasevic committed to was getting Alyse Ford the ball, which worked for the majority of the match but at times seemed stagnant.

The offensive set seemed to work for the Sun Devils in the first set, but by the second Colorado had figured it all out.

The Buffaloes countered the strategy by bringing in an extra defender on the right side to help against Ford, and from that point on, they dominated at the net.

And with all the attention on the senior transfer Ford, no other Sun Devils seemed to take advantage. Overall, Ford had a season high 29 kills, but the rest of the team combined for only 28.

After a strong first set of serving the ball, the Sun Devils fell back into their old habits and dropped serve 13 times on the game.

Four of the serving errors came from Megan Beedie, who had a pair of foot faults late in the match on what could have been decisive points.  Beedie seemed to move closer and closer to the line each time she served the ball before being called.

These all contributed to numerous errors that doomed the match for ASU.

The Sun Devils are home again this week to face Oregon on Friday at 7 p.m. The match can be viewed on Pac-12 Networks.