The Washington State University volleyball team dropped a pair of matches in the mountain states over the weekend.

WSU (14-3, 1-3) dropped a tightly contested match to Utah (13-3, 2-2) 2-3 Friday night before falling to Colorado (11-3, 3-1) 1-3 Sunday.

The Cougars came out flat against Utah losing the first two sets before taking the next two, forcing a decisive fifth set. Utah would ultimately take the fifth set, winning the match with set scores of 25-17, 25-14, 20-25, 24-26 and 15-8.

“It seemed like we could do nothing right those first two sets, and you can’t start out that way,” WSU Head Volleyball Coach Jen Greeny said in a press release. “We really put ourselves into a hole and in the Pac-12 it’s really hard to fight back out of that.”

The Cougars only hit .110 to the Utes .254 mark while also being out-blocked 13.5 to 10.

Freshman Kyra Holt and juniors Ver’Leea Hardaway and Jaicee Harris recorded double-digit kill totals. Holt led the way with 18 kills, hitting .123.

The story of the night for WSU was errors, most notably unforced errors. The Cougars recorded 32 attack errors, six service errors and five blocking errors against Utah.

“We really need to limit those unforced errors,” Greeny said. “Utah is a good blocking team, and that may have gotten into our hitters’ heads. Every night we have to come out with the same mentality and the same focus, and I didn’t think that was there…”

After a day of travel, the Cougars faced off against Colorado on Sunday.

WSU fell behind 0-2 for the second time during the road trip, this time unable to force a fifth set as Colorado won 3-1 (25-17, 25-21, 25-27, 25-19).

“A lot of people didn’t play real well and that’s tough,” Greeny said. “Chelsey Bettinson came in and gave us a little charge and did a nice job for us. We need more people to play more consistently.”

Holt led the Cougars on offense with 19 kills while hitting .234, while Harris contributed 10 kills of her own, hitting .231.

As a team WSU only managed to hit .200, while being bogged down by errors once again with 26 attack errors and nine service errors.

“At times our defense was great, and that’s what got us back into it, but our blocking struggled again and our serving did a little bit as well,” Greeny said. “We were a little bit tentative. We’re waiting to see what the other team is going to do before we react, and there is just not time against good teams.”

Up next for the Cougars is a pair of home matches against Arizona and Arizona State on Oct. 11 and Oct. 13.