No. 16 Volleyball Faces USC and UCLA in Los Angeles

Thursday, November 7

Los Angeles, Calif.

8:00 PM

University of Utah

USC

No. 16 Volleyball Faces USC and UCLA in Los Angeles

11/5/2019 5:19 PM | Volleyball

Game Notes

Utes Swept the Weekend Against the LA Schools Earlier in the Season

Match 24: No. 16 Utah (16-7, 8-4) at USC (13-9, 7-5)
Thursday, November 7 | 8 p.m. MT
Los Angeles | Galen Center
Stream: Pac-12+
Live Stats

Match 25: No. 16 Utah (16-7, 8-4) at UCLA (13-8, 8-4)
Saturday, November 9 | 6 p.m. MT
Los Angeles | Wooden Center
Stream: Pac-12+
Live Stats

FIRST SERVE
Utah hits the road after finishing a four-match home stand with a 3-1 record. The Utes are coming off a weekend where they beat Arizona State and Arizona in five sets to move to 8-4 in the Pac-12.

This weekend, the Utes will be traveling to Los Angeles to take on USC on Thursday and UCLA on Saturday.

Utah beat both of these teams when they made their visit to Salt Lake City.

PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Kenzie Koerber was named Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Week after having two double-doubles against Arizona State and Arizona.

Along with leading the team in kills with 17, she also posted a career high 20 digs against the Sun Devils.

This was Koerber's first defensive player of the week award and her second weekly award this season.

After hosting UCLA and USC, she was named Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Week after having 32 kills hitting .467 over the two matches.

Against UCLA, the junior right side had her fifth double-double of the season finishing with 14 kills and 10 digs. She hit .522 against the Bruins.

Koerber followed that up with an even better performance against USC as she led the team with 18 kills while hitting .432. The 18 kills are the second most she has had this season and were a huge reason that Utah came back from two sets down to win the match against the Trojans.

LIFE IN THE PAC-12
No. 17 Utah is coming off a stretch where they faced four straight ranked teams with two of those teams ranked in the top-10 in the middle of Pac-12 play and are about to enter a similar stretch.

The Utes went 1-3 during that stretch, but lost the three matches all in five sets with two of those coming in extra sets. Stanford beat them 17-15 in the fifth and Washington State just edged out Utah 16-14 in the fifth set.

The Pac-12 has eight teams in the top 50 RPI, tying for the most of any conference. Its 10 in the top 60 are the most for any league in the country. The Cardinal (#5), Washington (#7), UCLA (#14), USC (#20) and Utah (#22) all boast RPI in the top 25 (as of Nov. 4).

Along with all of these great teams comes long matches. Utah has played in nine five-set matches this season with seven of those coming in Pac-12 play. The Utes are 4-5 overall in those matches.

1,000 CAREER KILLS
Dani Drews surpassed the 1,000-career kill mark against Cal after having 25 kills.

This season, she has 10 20-kill matches having 25 kills against Arizona in the team's latest match.

Drews leads the Pac-12 in kills with 413 and is third in the conference averaging 4.49 kills per set.

Drews became the 17th player in Utah volleyball history to reach the 1,000 career kill mark when she eclipsed that mark against Cal earlier in the year.