RELATED CLICKS:

STATS: Box score | Season stats

GREELEY, Colo. -- Northern Colorado on Tuesday night inside a packed-to-the-gills Butler-Hancock Sports Pavilion sent the first wave of what could be a huge shift in the landscape of Colorado collegiate volleyball.

The Bears outplayed, outhustled and outhit the Colorado Buffaloes and sent their intstate rivals packing with a thoroughly convincing 3-0 (25-20, 25-17, 25-16) victory in front of a record crowd of 2,013.

Northern Colorado (4-1) got 40 kills in the tidy one-hour, twenty-minute match and scooped up 43 digs (a season best for a three-set match) in improving its overall mark against Colorado to 5-1. The teams first played in 1981, but they hadn't met recently since 2005.

The Bears are set to play every NCAA Division I team in the state this season, and a good showing in the four-match series (Colorado State, Denver and Air Force await) would definitely shake up the perception of Rocky Mountain volleyball and shed an entirely new light on head coach Lyndsey Benson's program, which is just now entering its seventh year of D-I competition.

And the exciting thing about Tuesday's night's match against the Buffaloes (1-2) is that Benson doesn't think her team played nearly as well as it can.

"Well, that was definitely an exciting match," Benson said. "Those were two teams full of players who know each other and have been playing against each other for awhile now, but I also think it looked like two teams who are very early in their seasons. We did some good things, and I'm really proud of those things, but we still can show even better than we did."

Senior Allison Raguse led the Northern Colorado charge with a team-high 10 kills and blistering .455 hitting percentage. Senior Taylor Smith, fresh off earning a share of this week's Big Sky Conference Player of the Week honor, was right behind Raguse with eight kills and two blocks.

And senior Kenzie Shreeve and junior Ashley Lichtenberg followed up with seven kills and four blocks between the two of them. Shreeve also contributed a match-high 14 digs.

"My defense is actually something I struggled with all through the preseason," Shreeve said, "So it's nice to get that going. I think we had a great all-around match tonight, and I'm glad I was able to contribute in more than just one area."

The potential impact of the lopsided victory wasn't lost on Bears senior Breanna VanDerMost, who had 11 digs Tuesday night and has turned in 10 or more digs in four of Northern Colorado's five matches this season and 30 of the Bears' last 32. She's from Colorado Springs and has played with some of the girls who were on the other side of the net Tuesday night. 

"When I first came here, and our crowds were what they were," VanDerMost said. "I don't think I could have truthfully said that I think we would be beating teams like Colorado 3-0 on our home floor. I mean, we're in our seventh year of playing at this level. Colorado has been up here for so much longer.

"That said, it was a great match tonight, and both teams played well. But, talent-for-talent? We were the better team. And that's a great thing to say and think about. This is a huge win for Northern Colorado volleyball."

NOTES: A sign of progress, anyone? Benson lost to Colorado 3-0 on a neutral floor in her first season as coach of the Bears... Benson, at 58-63, is now within five matches of evening her overall head-coaching record... The previous high for attendance for Northern Colorado volleyball came in 2002, when the Bears and Minnesota State played in front of 1,425.