Fresno State: volleyball gets milestone win over SJSU; baseball opener delayed to March

Fresno State volleyball won its home opener on Thursday with a 3-0 sweep over San Jose State at the Save Mart Center, its first home win against the Spartans since 2014.

The Bulldogs (2-1, 2-1 in the Mountain West) used a balanced offense and decisive runs in all three sets to win 25-23, 25-22, 25-21. Desiree Sukhov, Amaria Kelley and Savanah Smith all had nine kills for the Bulldogs, who hit .215 as a team compared to .059 for San Jose State (1-4, 1-4).

Amilya Thompson had a career-high 17 assists in the match – her career best had been four, set in 2019 against Utah State. Julia Handy added seven assists.

“We have a ton of good volleyball players on the team and we felt like this was a lineup that gave us some more arms and some more blocking and just some more volleyball players out there and it was something that is good for us,” coach Jonathan Winder said.

Fresno State was down 20-15 in the first set before tying it at 21 with a 6-1 run. At 23-23, the Bulldogs closed it out with kills by Smith and Kelley.

The Bulldogs, down 19-15 in the second set, got even on a service ace by Rodriguez, and closed the set with a service error, an ace by Thompson and an attack error.

Sukhov closed out the match with her ninth kill.

Fresno State and San Jose State will close out their two-match conference series on Friday at 6 p.m.

“We will watch some film tonight and get ready to go,” Winder said, of the fast turnaround. “I think it has been OK. The travel was easier when we went down to San Diego last weekend because you do not have to fly in between.”

The Mountain West’s volleyball season, postponed from the fall because of the pandemic, consists of six two-match series and four single matches. The Bulldogs’ series are in the first six weeks.

Winder said, “It is nice from a preparation standpoint, you just have one team to worry about so we watch film early in the week and hone in one opponent so the challenge for us learning from last weekend when we won the first match and then had the second match so how can we apply these lessons we learned from last weekend and be a little bit better the second time out because I am sure they will respond better.”

Baseball reworks schedule due to COVID-19 contact tracing

The Bulldogs baseball program, scheduled to open on Friday at UC Irvine, is on a coronavirus-related pause due to COVID-19 contact tracing protocols and has had to rework the first two-plus weeks of its season.

The series against the Anteaters has been postponed and a home opener against USF scheduled for Feb. 23 has been moved to San Francisco on March 2. The Bulldogs’ Mountain West Conference-opening series against San Jose State, which was to be played Feb. 27 and 28 at Pete Beiden Field at Bob Bennett Stadium, also has been postponed.

The Spartans are in a pause through March 27 due to health and safety concerns stemming from the coronavirus and team conduct issues.

The Bulldogs’ game at USF will now be their season opener, barring future changes. Fresno State will turn around four days later and open conference play at San Diego State with a doubleheader on March 6.

Also: Thibault, Bradshaw players of week

Women’s golf — Senior Brigitte Thibault scored her second career tournament title and the Bulldogs were second behind Tulsa in the team standings at the season-opening Las Vegas tournament. Thibault was named Mountain West women’s golfer of the week.

Men’s tennis — Senior Angus Bradshaw went 4-0 to help Fresno State win both season-opening matches. Bradshaw was named MW men’s tennis player of the week.

Equestrian — The Bulldogs are No. 8 in the latest national rankings.

This story was originally published February 18, 2021 at 7:19 PM.