The Gophers volleyball team opened the NCAA tournament with an impressive straight-set first-round victory over Utah State on Friday in Omaha, Neb.

Minnesota won the match 25-17, 25-14, 25-23 to improve to 17-12 on the season under first-year head coach Keegan Cook.

The Gophers won an NCAA tournament match for the ninth straight season and improved to 27-1 all time in opening-round matches.

Minnesota finished with 12 blocks and held Utah State to .048 hitting to dominate the match.

Lydia Grote finished with 10 kills (.471) to lead the Gophers, who also got 19 assists from Melani Shaffmaster, 17 digs from Kylie Murr, and six blocks each from Arica Davis and Phoebe Awoleye.

“Proud of our group for how we played in the serve and serve receive game,” Cook said in a statement. “We applied a lot of pressure there. Then in the third set, we were down and really had to battle back. Proud that we showed a lot of what we’ve been known for late in the season here, and happy I get to coach this group at least one more day.”

Minnesota will play either No. 3 seed Creighton or Colgate in a second-round match at 6:30 p.m. Saturday.

“We’ve been talking about making the (NCAA) tournament all year long,” Grote said. “Our season was much more difficult than expected, but we really battled and persevered. We knew we had to believe in ourselves if we wanted to have this opportunity.”

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