Buffs Roundup: The Pac-12 is stumping CU

BOULDER, Colo. — Pac-12 play continues to stifle varsity sports as they find little success facing off against conference opponents.

Here’s what happened this week:

Football

The Buffs losing streak continued as they fell to Washington State on Saturday night 41-10, causing their season mark to drop to 3-4 and the the team to drop to the bottom of the Pac-12 South.

The Buffs were behind early, as they dropped back 14 points and their offense sputtered for yet another week. The team had great success when running the football, led by sophomore Alex Fontenot’s 105 yards and 9.5 yards per carrying to go along with a Laviska Shenault rushing touchdown.

The biggest issue, again for a recurring week, came from inside the pocket, as Steven Montez struggled to get anything going for another week. Montez’s 53% completion percentage and two interceptions were good enough for a 76.1 rating and a fourth-quarter benching. For the first time in the last two years, the Buffs went three-deep at quarterback in this game, as after Montez was benched, Tyler Lytle was injured on the first play allowing for Blake Stenstrom to get the first action of his career.

The Buffs will look ahead to Friday night as they host USC who is coming off their own 41 point outing, touting a 4-3 record atop the Pac-12 South.

Soccer

The Buffs were able to break their losing streak by beating Arizona State 2-1 to improve their season record to 10-4-1 on Saturday at Prentup Field.

The Buffs were finally able to put together a strong game offensively after several in which they struggled to muster shots. Against ASU, they were able to outshoot the Sun Devils by one but had seven more on target, getting two in the back of the net thanks to Gabbi Chapa and Tessa Barton. For the first time in weeks, goalkeeper J.J. Thompkins had a relatively easy outing, only needing to block a handful of shots.

Looking ahead, the team will host Stanford and California on Thursday and Sunday, respectively, as they look to begin stacking conference wins as the season draws near an end.

Volleyball

The Buffs losing streak continues as they fall to Stanford and California and their season tally falls to 8-10.

When it rains, it pours for this Buffs squad as their schedule did them no favors this past week. Coming in with six losses in a row, the Buffs had to take on two incredibly tough conference opponents. First against No. 2 ranked Stanford, the Buffs dropped the match in three sets as they were heavily outmatched. The team could only muster 23 kills to Stanford 45 as their hitting percentage reached a new low (8.4%).

With that, the Buffs stepped it up a bit against No. 15 ranked California as they took the match to five sets, but ultimately losing 3-2. Although the match resulted in a loss, the Buffs had one of the better hitting showings of the season, coming out with 30.2% and 78 kills (behind California by five). Justice Spann led the valiant effort, totaling 27 kills in the match as well as leading the team with two aces.

The Buffs continued to look for a chance to stop the bleeding and now face against Washington State and Washington in Boulder on Thursday and Sunday.

Golf

The Buffs’ men’s meam looks forward to playing in their last tournament of 2019 on Monday in the Les Fowler Invitational at the Boulder Country Club.

The Buffs’ women’s team is preparing for the Pac-12 Preview Tournament in Hawaii during the first week of November.

Cross Country

In the last tournament before the postseason, the Men and Women’s cross country teams competed in Indiana at the NCAA Pre-National Invitational, with the men finishing second and the women finishing third.

The men finished just two points behind the leader behind impressive finishes by John Dressel and Joe Klecker, finishing eighth and ninth with times of 23:34:4 and 23:35:3, respectively. The women finished 39 points behind second-place finisher BYU but also had two Buffs in the top ten with Sage Hurta and Tabor Scholl finishing third and tenth with times of 20:10:0 and 20:27:1, respectively.

Both teams have a few weeks off before heading off to Oregon for the Pac-12 Championship on Nov. 1.