Box Score 1 | Box Score 2 PUEBLO, Colo. – The Colorado State University Pueblo volleyball team kicked off its season on the right foot, sweeping both Rollins College and Fort Hays State University in the first day of the Steel City Showcase.

Game 1 | CSU Pueblo 3 – Rollins 0
In the morning match, the Pack struggled to begin the day. Rollins gained an early 6-3 advantage before Head Coach Austin Albers called a timeout to have his team regroup. The coach was able to fire up his ThunderWolves and get them back on track.

The Pack enjoyed a 10-0 run off the help of Megan Mattingly's serving abilities. The 10-0 stretch saw two Mattingly aces, two kills from Hannah Delor and three assists from Sabrina King.

After the run was finally ended, the ThunderWolves kept up the attack and swelled the lead to 21-14. The first set ended with kills from Tatum Farmer and Jazzy Espinoza as the Pack clinched a 1-0 advantage after a dominating 25-18 set.

Picking up right where they left off, the ThunderWolves jumped to a 12-5 lead in the second set. In the early going, Milica Djukic, Farmer, Mattingly, Espinoza, and Delor each enjoyed kills to stifle any response from the Tars.

After they gained a 15-8 advantage, the Pack boasted another 9-0 run. This time, libero Elaine Thibadeau stepped up as a tough server to defend. Payton Stack joined in on the spike party with a number of kills for herself. Mattingly put the second set away for the Pack in an even more dominating fashion, clinching a 25-11 second set win.

In the third set, the Tars came out more aggressive. Despite the determination, the Pack kept up their relentlessness at the net. The ThunderWolves enjoyed a 17-11 advantage following multiple short runs off the serving by Farmer, Kyle Meltzer, Thibadeau, and King.

Delor logged back-to-back aces on her way to getting the Pack one point within clinching their first win of the 2021 season.
The Tars committed a service to end the match and secured the 3-0 sweep for CSU Pueblo.

Stack led the Pack with a slew of kills, totaling 11 in the late morning sweep of Rollins. The senior also added on a team-high four block assists. Delor tacked on eight kills along with Mattingly's six. King led the way with 13 assists off the bench followed closely by Hern's 10. Thibadeau led the ThunderWolves with nine digs.

The Pack played a clean game, hitting a collective .391 attack percentage while committing only nine errors on 69 attacks. In the third set, the Pack hit an extremely efficient .619 from the floor.

Game 2 | CSU Pueblo 3 – Fort Hays State 0

In the afternoon match, all the beginning of the year jitters were shaken off and the Pack struck fast and aggressive. The ThunderWolves jumped out to a 9-1 lead in the first set and quickly grew it to 16-6 with the help of Tigers errors and a surplus of kills from Mattingly and Espinoza.
The Pack closed out the first set in dominating fashion as they clinched six of the final seven rallies. Espinoza, Stack, and Mattingly logged three consecutive kills to get to the set point. Espinoza locked up the first set with another kill to clinch a 25-10, 1-0 advantage.

The second set saw the Tigers challenging the Pack attackers more and hung around, only trailing 10-8. Despite the challenges at the net, the Pack attackers were willing to rise to the task as they scored six consecutive points to jump to a 16-8 lead.

The ThunderWolves quickly put away the set 25-18 to jump to a 2-0 lead after back-to-back kills by Stack.

The third set did not see the same overpowering dominance from the Pack. After jumping to a 5-1 lead, the Tigers clawed back into it and took a 15-11 lead after taking nine of 10 consecutive points.

Like shown in the morning match, the Pack did not back down to the adversity. CSU Pueblo was able to even things back up at 17 after kills from Hannah Delor and Grace Hern. The Tigers regained the lead but could not put the Pack away.

The ThunderWolves put together a scoring run of four straight points to take a 23-21 advantage with help from another Delor kill to get within striking distance of the sweep. Delor put the Tigers away with back-to-back kills to clinch the second 3-0 sweep of the day.

Delor dominated the evening match with 14 kills on 30 attacks, a personal best since her arrival to CSU Pueblo. The ThunderWolves logged 35 kills against Fort Hays, 11 more than their foe.
Mattingly and Delor led the squad with six digs each. Hern logged a team-best 13 assists as she was followed closely by true freshman Sabrina King with eight to her credit.

Delor capped off her dominating night with a team-best four service aces while managing to not make a single service error.
The Pack are back in action Saturday as they close down the Steel City Showcase with a 1 p.m. match against Mary followed by another evening match against Minnesota-Crookston.