Star out, Rebels defeated

Friday, Nov. 8, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

It will go down in the books as a Western Athletic Conference loss, but the UNLV volleyball team's straight-set defeat to Fresno State was little more than an exhibition game as far as head coach Deitre Collins was concerned.

Playing without team leader Meri-de Boyer, who broke her foot Monday in practice and will be out for the remainder of the season, Collins was forced to juggle her lineup Thursday night at South Gym.

The result may have been predictable, but Collins refused to use the loss of her only player with Division I experience as an excuse.

"We knew we were going to need game time to be able to work out a lineup," Collins said after the 15-6, 15-10, 15-4 defeat. "But that's not an excuse and it doesn't make it OK for how we played. No matter what, we still have to be able to play the game of volleyball. Under it all, they're still young and they played like it.

"We just had people in new positions. We're young and when you're dealt a blow with your team leader gone and you've got to play a new position, that's tough."

Although the loss dropped UNLV to 3-8 in the WAC and 5-16 overall, the Lady Rebels still are in the hunt for a bid to the inaugural conference tournament at the end of this month. Because of her team's relative inexperience, Collins is unsure how it will react to Boyer's loss in the remaining five games.

"I would say they're a little frustrated," Collins said of her players. "Meri-de was our captain, she was the calm person on the floor and was our leader. You lose that, then you get frustrated because you don't know who to look to.

"Maybe the good thing about being young is that anything can happen. If we were an experienced team and I knew how we acted in certain situations, I could say how they will react. But we've gone so up and down that anything can happen. I think as we get more comfortable playing without Meri-de, that we still have a chance."

According to Collins, a win Saturday at home against San Jose State or here against Wyoming Nov. 23 would send the Lady Rebels to the conference tournament, to be played Nov. 26-20 at the MGM Grand Garden arena.

"I think one win would get us in ... but two would be nice," Collins said.

With Christy Clark taking over for Boyer at setter, the Lady Rebels showed some signs of life in the second game. After falling behind 14-6, UNLV rallied for four points to close to 14-10 before the Lady Bulldogs put the game away.

Fresno State (7-4, 19-6) set down the Lady Rebels with an easy 15-4 victory in the final game.

"Unfortunately, we wait, get into a rut and then try to dig ourselves out," Collins said. "We fought back in game two but it didn't carry over into game three until we had to fight back in that. You just can't fight back against good teams; they know how to put you away."