By Wade Denniston

In spite of a slow start, the Utah State University women's volleyball team swept the University of North Texas in three games 15-7, 15-6, 15-0 Thursday night at the Spectrum.

The win improved USU's record to 3-2 in the Big West Conference and 4-8 overall. North Texas (0-5 Big West, 4-13) dropped its eighth match in a row. In addition, the Mean Green has not won a game in four straight matches.

"It's been a tough road," Aggie junior outside hitter Amy Goulding-Crosbie said. "We've played some really big teams and we've had some losses that have been really close. It's good to be the winning team."

The Aggies dug themselves a hole in the first game as they allowed the Mean Green to jump out to a 6-3 lead. USU battled back with a 10-point run to take the lead for good at 13-6.

Game two proved to be another slow start for USU as North Texas took another early lead at 6-2, but couldn't hold off the Aggies as they fought back again. This time, USU ran off 13 unanswered points to close out the game.

"That's disappointing the way we started the match with errors," Aggie head coach Tom Peterson said. "It's just lucky that we were playing that team."

Goulding-Crosbie agreed.

"We had some slow starts in the beginning of some games and our goal was to come out big, and we did for the third game," Goulding-Crosbie said.

Goulding-Crosbie led the Aggies with a match-high 14 kills and match-high 13 digs. She also had a .296 hitting percentage.

Senior middle blocker Tiffany Kitley also had a big game for the Aggies as she recorded 10 kills and three blocks. She also had a match-high .529 hitting percentage.

USU picked up where it left off in the second game as it dominated North Texas in the third game from the get-go, en route to the 15-0 victory.

Peterson was pleased with the effort from the 11 players who saw action in the match.

"Maybe the best thing for me is that everyone got to play and they all did some good things," Peterson said. "When you substitute, you want to substitute all the time for an upgrade in quality and we did that. Anybody that went in did a nice job."

As a team, the Aggies hit .368 (55 kills- 16 errors- 106 attempts). In addition, they also recorded 47 digs.

North Texas was only able to muster up a .061 hitting percentage (24 kills- 18 errors- 98 attempts).

USU will now set its sight on New Mexico State University, which invades the Spectrum Saturday night.

The Roadrunners (3-2 Big West, 10-7) are coming off a three-game match loss to the University of Nevada-Reno 15-4, 15-9, 15-12. The loss snapped a three-match winning streak by the Roadrunners.

"We're looking forward to playing New Mexico (State) because if we win that match, that puts us up in the standings pretty far," Peterson said.

In order to win though, USU will need to be hitting on all cylinders starting in the first game.

"If we would've played New Mexico State like we did the first two games (tonight), we would've been down 2-0," Goulding-Crosbie said. "So, (getting) our serves in and not hitting the ball out is a huge key."

NMSU and USU have met 47 times previously with the Roadrunners holding a 28-19 lead.

Last season, the two teams met twice, with each winning on their home court. NMSU won in four games at Las Cruces, N.M. 7-15, 15-5, 15-9, and 15-7. USU won in three games at the Spectrum 15-12, 15-7, and 15-10.

The match begins at 7 p.m. Oct. 9.

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