UNLV volleyball team gets huge win
Cindy Fredrick has been an NCAA volleyball coach for 28 seasons. She’s won wherever she’s been, having directed her teams to 10 NCAA Tournament berths. She’s even won at UNLV, which isn’t always easy.
Her first team here three years ago peaked at the end of the season and made it all the way to the Mountain West championship match before losing to mighty Colorado State. In 2012, she guided UNLV to 18 wins.
Still, until this season, and until last Saturday, she was mostly known around here as Ali Farokhmanesh’s mom.
In 2010, Fredrick’s son Ali made a long 3-point basket at the end of the game for Northern Iowa that knocked UNLV out of the NCAA Tournament. Two days later, he hit an even longer 3-pointer that knocked Kansas out. Then they put Ali’s picture on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
So that was what Cindy Fredrick was mostly known for around here, until this season, until Saturday, when the UNLV volleyball team beat No. 7 Colorado State at Cox Pavilion.
The match lasted four games, and I’m told it was exciting, and about 700 spectators — about 400 more than usual — cheered like crazy. None cheered louder, ear witnesses said, than RoseAnn Patterson, who usually drives up from Phoenix and takes lots of pictures of her daughter Alexis, a freshman setter for UNLV, and the other Rebels.
It was UNLV’s first win ever over a top-10 opponent, the Rebels 20th victory this season against only six losses. It snapped CSU’s 18-match winning streak and 32-match success streak in matches played away from Moby Arena in Fort Collins, and it put UNLV back into second place in the MWC.
While it’s highly unlikely the Rebels will catch the Rams, with seven matches to play they now find themselves on the NCAA Tournament bubble with a win of major quality. If UNLV gets in, it will be for just the second time in school history.
So to paraphrase the Fountains of Wayne, Ali’s mom has got it goin’ on, and so do her players.
“Colorado State is the gold standard in the conference right now,” said Fredrick, who previously coached at Weber State, Washington State and Iowa along with her husband and chief assistant Marshallah Farokhmanesh, Ali’s dad, and a former captain of the Iranian national volleyball team. The two met long ago at Graceland — Graceland College in Lamoni, Iowa, during a summer volleyball camp.
“And then to say we handed them only their second loss of the year — we’ve been close several times before; we lost to them in five here twice. But this was just a huge, huge win. To say that this is the first time in history the UNLV volleyball team beat a top-10 team, yeah.”
It was a huge, huge win that should keep on giving. Certainly, it’ll impress the tournament committee when it starts to divvy up the at-large berths, and it’ll impress recruits. It already has, says Fredrick, who will record her 500th career win if UNLV finishes strong; she now has 495.
“It’s interesting, we have been a recruiting a young lady who said ‘I think I’m going to come visit, but I’m not sure.’ The day after (the Colorado State match) she called and said ‘I’m coming to visit.’
“We’ve been waiting for this, you build for this. For four years, we’ve been building for this. I think that every year we’ve recruited players who are a little bit better.”
She didn’t have to go very far to recruit one. Standing alongside was redshirt sophomore Bree Hammel of Las Vegas, also a track and soccer star at Bonanza. Hammel didn’t start playing volleyball until ninth grade, when she attended one of Fredrick’s UNLV camps. It cost around $200, which she has turned into a $60,000 education. Not a bad investment.
Hammel, who stands 6 feet tall, leads the MWC and is fifth in the NCAA in blocks and blocks per set.
Standing next to Hammel was Lexie Patterson, RoseAnn’s daughter, a freshman who sets and hits with her left hand. I’m told in volleyball, a southpaw can give opponents fits, as in boxing.
The UNLV players talked about the huge, huge win against CSU. Hammel confirmed that RoseAnn Patterson cheers with a strident voice when she comes up from Phoenix. Lexie Patterson agreed, with a sheepish smile.
Yup, it was a signature win, beating CSU like that after dropping the first game, but how huge would it be for these two and their teammates to play in the NCAA Tournament?
The players looked at each other, waiting for the other to answer.
“That would be so crazy, I don’t know,” Patterson finally said.
“It would be really exciting,” added Hammel.
“That would be an understatement,” Patterson said.
You could tell the players were bashful about being interviewed, probably because they’re not used to it. Perhaps that’s about to change. People are starting to notice the UNLV volleyball team after the huge, huge win against Colorado State.
Even the big men on campus have begun to notice.
After the volleyball players left to pack their bags for matches at New Mexico and Air Force, some UNLV men’s basketball players strolled into the practice gym on their way to the Thomas & Mack locker room. One of them, I believe it was Jelan Kendrick, shouted a greeting to Cindy Fredrick, wishing her and the team well on its road trip.
Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.