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The Utah Utes took on two sets of Bulldogs on Saturday, with much more success the second time around.
Gonzaga defeated the home squad in the Utah Classic invitational, which started on Friday, by knocking off the Utes in a marathon 26-24, 26-24, 19-25, 25-27, 17-15 victory. That essentially won the tourney for the Bulldogs as Gonzaga also defeated Idaho State and Butler in the course of the event.
Utah (2-1) bounced back against the next group of 'Dogs, Butler, by winning the nightcap at the Huntsman Center 25-21, 25-17, 21-25, 25-9.
The only time Butler held a lead of over one point during the course of the match was when the Bulldogs won that third set. Otherwise, the hitting of middles Berkeley Oblad and Tawnee Luafalemana, along with the power of senior outside Adora Anae, controlled matters for Utah.
"She's a beast," said Butler coach Sharon Clark of Anae, who pounded 20 kills and was named to the all-tourney team with Oblad.
Only a freshman, Oblad scored 10 kills in the finale.
"She's doing a wonderful job and I'm really proud of her," said Utah senior libero Tess Sutton of Oblad. "She's a hard-worker and I don't even think of her as a freshman."
The Utes broke away from Butler (1-2) in the first set when Eliza Katou and Anae smacked consecutive kills to move their lead to 16-13. Utah pulled away by winning six of seven points to go up 22-15 as Carly Trueman and Luafalemana also scored winners.
The second set progressed in similar fashion — tight early, until the Utes went on a 7-2 run behind the serving of setter Bailey Choy and freshman Torre Glasker to make the score 13-8.
Butler forced a fourth set by winning the third, but Utah had little trouble with the visitors in finishing off the match.
"We're not a fine-tuned machine, but nobody is this time of the year," Utah coach Beth Launiere said. "I like how we came back a ton. I thought we were pretty sharp tonight.
"We had a little lapse I thought in set three, but I thought we played much better than we did in the first two sets against Gonzaga," added Launiere, hearkening back to the morning loss against the Zags.
The Utah coach said that she did quite a bit of tinkering with her rotations over the course of the tournament, which also included a sweep of Idaho State Friday night, and that included trying a two-setter system before settling with Choy primarily on Saturday evening.
"We moved people around quite a bit and took this opportunity to see some things," she said.
The match also marked a sort of homecoming for Butler sophomore Kai Jarema, who played high school at Lone Peak. Jarema was used in a reserve role against Utah, but did score a kill and a block.
"I liked seeing the friends come out and become fans. It was a really nice change of events for us," Jarema said.
Utah will go from one tournament to another, playing at the Missouri Invitational next weekend, with games in Columbia (MO) against the host Tigers as well as Rice and Illinois State.