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Show 6 Monday December 2, 2013 SPORTS UPCOMING SPORTS EVENTS TUESDAY: Men's Basketball Utah @ Boise State 8:05 p.m. Boise, Idaho THURSDAY: Volleyball First and Second Rounds TBA TBA Swimming & Diving USA Short Course Nationals All Day Knoxville, Tenn. PAC-12 SCORE ROUNDUP FOOTBALL Stanford 27 Notre Dame 20 Arizona St. 58 Arizona 21 UCLA 35 USC 14 Oregon 36 Oregon St. 35 Washington 27 Washington St. 17 Utah 24 Colorado 17 *The Pac-12 Championship Game will be played Saturday, Dec. 7 in Tempe, Ariz. The Arizona State Sun Devils will face the Stanford Cardinal. Kickoff is scheduled for 5:45 p.m., Mountain Standard Time. The game will be aired on ESPN. The winner will play in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1 in Pasadena, Calif. COLUMN U belongs in Pac-12, except for football www.dailyutahchronicle.corn VOLLEYBALL Utes clinch NCAA Tournament spot Brandon Barlow STAFF WRITER Hard work pays off. That has been the motto for the Utes all season long, and thanks to early season success and a positive finish, they have officially reached a goal they've been eyeing all year. The team found out Sunday night on ESPNU's Selection Show that it has earned a berth to the NCAA Tournament, where it will play Yale in the first round on Friday in University Park, Pa. It is the first tournament berth for the Utes since 2008 when they made it to the Sweet 16. "There is not a better feeling for a coach to see their program's name come up," said Utah head coach Beth Launiere. "There is just so much work to go into getting your name up on that bracket. I am so proud for these players more than anything. Happy for them and happy for our program. It was a lot of hard work going into finding our way through the Pac-12 and how to get there in a new conference, there is just a lot of work that goes into it." The Utes finished the season ranked No. 26 in the RPI after going 20-12 overall and 9-11 in conference play. The big key for Utah was winning three of its last five matches, including the final regular season match against UCLA last Friday. Launiere said those last matches were what really brought out the best in the team. Seniors Morgan Odale and Erin Redd-Brandon in particular stepped up as the season came to a close in an effort to get to the tournament in their final season. "The journey is always hard," Redd-Brandon said. "Things that are worth doing are usually never easy. We have had our ups and downs and have had some things that we have had to get over, but have also had the great times. I would not trade it for anything. This journey has been awesome, and I am excited to see it continue." Yale will come into Friday as the regular season champion of the Ivy League. The Bulldogs went 20-4 overall and 13-1 in conference play. They have won their last five matches and are led by All-Ivy League junior outside hitter Mollie Rogers, who leads the team with 253 kills on the year with an average of 3.05 kills per set. 1 I JIM, MADELINE SMITH/The Daily Utah Chronicle Senior outside hitter Morgan Odale hits past an Oregon State defender on Nov. 24 in the Huntsman Center. Odale and the Utes finished off the regular season with a 3-1 victory over UCLA in Los Angeles, Calif. over the weekend. The Utes will travel to Pennsylvania on teams have grown and changed throughout the Wednesday in preparation for Friday's match. year, and we are a new team, so we just have to Odale recognizes that, unlike the regular season, bring our best to the table so that we can win." a loss means Utah's season and her collegiate The match is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. EST career will be over. on Friday. "We plan to beat them," Odale said. "Both b.barlow@chronicle.utah.edu n CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 RYAN MCDONALD Sports Editor fascinating irony is unfolding within Utah athletics. A large part of the reason Utah was able to join the Par-12 in the first place was because of the success the football team had over the previous eight years or so. The discussion about moving to a more prestigious conference had taken place for years prior to the 21st century, but it wasn't until the Utes busted the BCS in 2004 and then again in 2008 that those talks gained enough traction to take the leap. With the change came the understanding that many of Utah's other sports would struggle. The Pac-12 is known as the Conference of Champions because of the depth it has in terms of having strong teams in every sport. To be frank, though, hardly anyone cared whether or not squads like the volleyball team would be any good. The football team had shown it was capable of going toe-to-toe with the best in the nation, and as long as that happened, people were more than happy that the Utes were joining a BCS conference. It's clear many Utah fans still feel that going to the Pac-12 for football alone was a good enough reason to leave the Mountain West Confer- A See MCDONALD page 8 CONOR BARRY/The Daily Utah Chronicle Wide receiver Dres Anderson and running back Kelvin York jump in celebration after a Utah touchdown in the Ute's victory against Colorado on Saturday in Rice-Eccles Stadium. we are very happy we won." In the early going, Utah looked like it would run away with the contest. In his third game back from injury, tight end Jake Murphy scored for the fifth time since his return. Senior running back Kelvin York had a productive conclusion to his career, scoring the other two Ute touchdowns on 132 yards rushing as Utah took a 21-0 lead into the locker room. However, the Ute offense never found its stride in the second half and did not cross the goal line again. "We came out hot then died down a bit," Schulz said. "It was not necessarily anything they did, but at the end of the day, we did well, and the defense held them really well." In the second half, Colorado quarterback Sefo Luifau first found Scott Fernandez for a 34-yard touchdown up the middle of the field. Then, after a drive stalled on the Utes' 2-yard line, Buffs' kicker Will Oliver tacked on three more points to make it 21-10. Utah kicker Andy Phillips pushed the lead back to 24-10 on a 46-yard field goal, but Colorado didn't go away. Luifau hit Nelson Spruce for another touchdown, and the Buffaloes were in striking distance again at 24-17 with 2:30 remaining. After Colorado failed an onside kick, the Utes got the ball but could not make any progress and had to relinquish possession with plenty of time remaining. That's when Reilly put his foot down and ended it once and for all. "We made the game more difficult than it needed to be. Credit Colorado, they hung in there," said Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham. "Bottom line, we got a win, and it was great for the seniors to go out with a win." c.mobley@chronicle.utah.edu |