OGDEN — Weber State volleyball spent its last eight days facing challenges it hopes will lead the Wildcats to be battle-tested by the time conference play comes around.

The fourth match in that span came Saturday, a tilt in Swenson Gym against UNLV — a team that was 26-5 and went to the NCAA Tournament last season.

An assertive first set gave way to two frames where, according to head coach Jeremiah Larsen, WSU’s “crappy” swinging wasn’t going to get it done against a “really good” Rebels squad.

But Weber State sharpened up and rallied for a five-set win (25-18, 20-25, 19-25, 25-20, 15-12) to get back in the win column with two weeks left in nonconference play.

“They made a really good adjustment and we didn’t catch them on it and exploit what they were giving us,” Larsen said. “And, we were just hitting a ton of balls out of bounds … we weren’t taking quality swings and they’re a good volleyball team.”

WSU hit five aces in the first set and generally served tough. UNLV didn’t have an answer in its receiving game and the Wildcats cruised from the start to a 25-20 win.

Senior hitter Dani Richins had one of those aces. Another in the fourth set put her to 173 career aces, tying the program’s all-time record.

“It’s cool to see,” Larsen said of Richins climbing all-time leaderboards. “All we’ve done since she got here is be successful … she’s one of the all-time greats here at Weber State and these are more tick marks on her resume to be one of the best ever. She’s worked extremely hard and I’m happy for whatever accolades and rewards she gets.”

UNLV controlled the action in the second and third sets — enough that it appeared the Wildcats might be skidding to a quick loss.

Instead, Weber State (3-3) answered in the fourth set. Rose Moore was part of the tough service game in the first set and she emerged in the fourth with consecutive aces to put WSU up 16-11.

Then WSU’s block got going. On set point, Ashley Gneiting stuffed a UNLV swing and the rally came back to Mia Peterson’s side, who stuck a solo block to win the point and get the match to the fifth set.

The fifth set began with a Kate Standifird solo block, then two straight Gneiting/Liana Woodley blocks had WSU up 8-5.

The Rebels got it to 8-8 but WSU pulled away again. On match point, Makayla Sorensen received a tough UNLV swing with a stellar sideways stab. Her dig led to a Gneiting game-winner.

“Today, we did a nice job understanding how to compete with focus, and that’s been our emphasis is can we compete with focus instead of with emotion,” Larsen said.

Richins led WSU with 16 kills, adding 12 digs; she’s surpassed 1,500 kills for her career and former teammate Rylin Adams for third place all-time for the program.

Outside hitter Mia Peterson, a sophomore from Pleasant Grove who transferred from New Mexico State, had 11 kills. She’s been a nice addition on the outside.

“She’s another quality human being I have in the gym. She works hard, she wants to be successful and she wants to be good. I have 15 like that,” Larsen said. “She brings another component and a little more depth in that outside position that we didn’t have last year.”

Woodley posted 10 kills, doubling her career-high, on a .368 hitting percentage.

Standifird tallied 44 assists, 17 digs and five blocks — all team highs for the match.

The victory came after taking a tough, five-set loss to Saint Mary’s on Saturday, Aug. 26. Saint Mary’s is 5-0 against teams similar to WSU, but Weber is the only one so far to get the Gaels to a fifth set.

Weber State lost 3-1 at Utah State on Thursday, then took a 3-0 home loss to Loyola Marymount on Friday. LMU entered the week receiving votes in the national Top 25; the Lions are 2-3 after a five-set loss Saturday at Utah State but its other losses are to No. 1 Texas and No. 9 BYU.

After that leadup to Saturday’s match with UNLV, and getting down 2-1 to the Rebels, Larsen says there are signs the team could be made of the right stuff.

“We’ve been trying to find our identity a little bit … I think we learned that if we can compete, we can string together good plays for longer periods of time,” Larsen said. “The spring was really good for us; we worked on our mental game and I think we’re seeing moments of (toughness). We’ve just got to string it together … point after point.”

Weber State next travels to Corpus Christi, Texas, from Sept. 7-9, to play Texas A&M Corpus Christi, Prairie View A&M and Tulane.

After that, it’s Utah Valley at home (Sept. 12) and Utah on the road (Sept. 15) to wrap up nonconference play.

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