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Senior setter Kendall Cygan may be Utah's most vocal leader, and she's grown frustrated with sophomore Carly Trueman.

Trueman needs to step it up, Cygan said Wednesday.

She needs to watch more Netflix.

They've been roommates now for two years — the extroverted Cygan looking for a social companion, the thrill-seeking Trueman looking to do … just about everything else.

Dirt-biking. Motorcycling. Snowboarding. Fishing. Camping.

She has a weak spot for video games — "Red Dead Redemption," or as Cygan teasingly calls it, "Cowboys and Indians," is among her favorites.

She went skydiving, once.

And, otherwise, she shuts down.

"She's really adventurous, but when she gets home, she's very kept to herself, and she likes her alone time," Cygan said, pretending to pout. "Which sucks, because I want to spend time with her."

A 6-foot-1 middle blocker and outside hitter from Tucson, Trueman became the school's first Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Week as a redshirt freshman and is third on the team this year in both kills and blocks. But while she may sleep soundly, head coach Beth Launiere dreads what might be in store for Trueman the next day.

"I just learned with Carly that you can't keep her down," Launiere said. "She thrives on that stuff, and that's who she is."

As soon as she learned to ride a bicycle, Trueman began dirt-biking with her father, who lives in East Millcreek, at age 5.

They still ride at Little Sahara, and he bought her a 2012 Yamaha FC6R street bike that she uses to accompany him on a loop down through Torrey, Utah.

"It's not that it's not a little scary," Trueman said of dirt-biking. "Of course you're pushing your limits, and I think that's the best part. Like, you're a little nervous to take this corner at whatever speed you're doing, but you know you can, so you try it out and it feels amazing."

She's also skied since 5, transitioning to a snowboard in her teens. Come spring, she's a regular at Solitude and Canyons.

During Trueman's first year on campus, an off-court injury cost her four months of training time, but the circumstances were fairly innocent: She broke her wrist crashing a bicycle on campus.

The same year, one of her friends suggested skydiving.

"There wasn't any hesitation," she said. "I was ready. It was awesome."

Launiere, who found out after the fact that one of her most promising players had jettisoned herself from a moving plane, sighs.

"I don't know if it's toughness as much as just the adrenaline rush," she said. "Hopefully, she gets that from playing volleyball, too."

If anything on a volleyball court can compare to hairpin turns among sand dunes, it might be hosting the nation's No. 12 and No. 1 teams and trying to defend two of the nation's best outside hitters.

Launiere was encouraged by her team's resolve during five-set losses at Oregon State and No. 25 Oregon last weekend, but it's going to take another giant leap forward this weekend to repeat last November's home sweep of the Los Angeles schools.

West Virginia transfer Jordan Anderson takes a rare turn on the undercard when the Bruins visit Friday night, averaging 4.8 kills per set. Then, Sunday, comes the only player in the Pac-12 who scores at a higher rate ­— more than five kills per set ­— in USC's Samantha Bricio.

Bricio is "very possibly the best player in the country," Launiere said, possessed of an "elite" all-around game and a sidespin jump serve that can be unstoppable at times.

Two wins would give Launiere the 500th of her career, but Utah is a combined 4-29 all-time against USC and UCLA.

If anybody is undaunted by that, you would expect it to be Trueman. Cygan believes Trueman has the ability to become an All-American someday — even if she'll never become a regular in the living room.

It helps her chances that she's stopped jumping on the dirt bike, Trueman said. She mostly sticks to speeding along the desert floor.

"That's really good to hear," Launiere laughed. "It sounds like that's a good thing."

mpiper@sltrib.com Twitter: @matthew_piper —

This weekend's schedule

P No. 12 UCLA (11-3) at Utah (7-8) • Friday, 6 p.m. at the Huntsman Center. TV: Pac-12 Networks

No. 1 USC (16-0) at Utah • Sunday, 1 p.m. at the Huntsman Center. Live stream: http://www.utahutes.com