Nov. 26, 2001

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LOGAN, Utah - Utah State's volleyball team will play in its second straight NCAA Tournament when the Aggies head to Salt Lake City to meet Brigham Young in the first round at the Crimson Court on the University of Utah campus on Thursday. Other teams at Salt Lake City include host Utah and Texas Tech.

Utah State will meet BYU at 6 p.m. with Utah and Texas Tech playing after that match. The winners will meet on Friday at 7 p.m.

"We are really happy to be playing in the tournament," said first-year Aggie head coach Burt Fuller. "It something that we strived for from the beginning of the season. Congratulations to our kids. Congratulations to BYU, Utah and Texas Tech. We kind of figured with the regionalization (of the NCAA Tournament) that we were going to be playing BYU at Utah with one other team there and that is how things panned out.

"BYU, Texas Tech and Utah are all good programs," Fuller added. "All these teams are pretty close. We are going to have to play some pretty good volleyball to advance out of there, as is BYU, as is Utah and as is Texas Tech. We are all going down there to win matches and whoever can put together two good matches will go on."

Last year the Aggies defeated Missouri in the first round of the NCAA Tournament before falling to Brigham Young in three straight games in the second round. Both of those matches took place at Provo, Utah.

This year Utah State is 19-10 overall and finished fourth with a 12-6 record in the highly competitive Big West Conference. Other teams from the Big West that advanced to the NCAA Tournament include top-ranked Long Beach State, 12th-ranked Pacific, and 24th-ranked UC Santa Barbara.

19th-ranked Brigham Young brings a 20-8 record into the tournament, while 13th-listed Utah is 23-6 and Texas Tech is 18-13. The Aggies defeated Brigham Young 3-0 (30-26, 30-23, 30-21) at Provo on Oct. 16.

"BYU is a great team and has great players," Fuller said. "We were able to put together a great match against them earlier this season. We are going to have to work real, real hard the next couple of days to make sure we are ready to go again. We are just happy to be playing."

"I am excited to play BYU again," said USU senior middle blocker Michelle Matheson. "I think we will have a lot of confidence going into the BYU game because we beat them already this season and we have payback from last year (NCAA Tournament)."

USU, which is receiving votes in the poll and is the equivalent of 30th, owns a 4-9 record against 10 teams in the 64-school NCAA Tournament field. This year the Aggies split two matches with Pacific, while defeating Brigham Young, Cincinnati, and Arkansas and losing to Long Beach State (twice), UC Santa Barbara (twice), Hawai'i, Southern California, Utah and Colorado State.

"I thought we were right where we should have been this season," Fuller said. "We had some nice wins and we didn't have any huge losses. Our kids are playing well. We played pretty efficiently down the stretch. We are healthy and we don't have to travel far so I think it is a good spot for us to be."

Utah State individual leaders this season include Chelsi Neves, who averages 12.14 assists per game and has a team-best .388 hitting percentage as well as Lisa Borom, who leads the team with 3.60 kills per game and Erin Cartwright, who averages 3.34 kills per contest. Michelle Matheson has a hitting percentage of .310, the second best mark on the team, and leads the squad with 1.05 blocks per game.

Of USU's 10 losses this year, nine were at the hands of ranked teams, while the Aggies defeated two ranked teams on the year in BYU and Pacific. USU was 8-3 in its last 11 matches with the three losses coming at then 17th-ranked Pacific as well as twice to top-ranked Long Beach State.

This season is the 21st year of the NCAA women's volleyball championship with the Final Four scheduled for San Diego, Calif., Dec. 13-15.