SALT LAKE CITY — LOVB Salt Lake could be three sets away from bringing a league championship back to Utah after Thursday night.
Former BYU All-American outside hitter Alexa Gray had 24 kills, 13 digs and three blocks as LOVB Salt Lake held off LOVB Austin, 22-25, 25-21, 22-25, 27-25, 16-14 in the first match of the League One Volleyball championship series Thursday night at the LBS Financial Credit Union Pyramid in Long Beach, California.
Heidy Casanova added 18 kills and nine digs, and Jordyn Poulter dished out 59 assists for Salt Lake, the second-year professional volleyball franchise based in Utah's capitol city that can clinch a championship with a win in Saturday's season finale in Long Beach.
If Austin wins the second set of the championship series, a winner-take-all "Golden Set" tiebreaker to 15 points will decide the title match.
Logan Eggleston had 12 kills and eight digs, and Asjia O'neal added 12 kills for LOVB Austin, which split the regular-season series at two matches apiece but won the last two via sweep inclluding a 25-18, 29-27, 25-21 win on April.
But after Austin jumped out to the early 1-0 advantage, Salt Lake battled back in the second and Claire Hoffman equalized the match with her sixth kill of the set to pull even.
"This was a gritty win for us," Salt Lake coach Tama Miyashiro said in a news release. "There were stretches of really good volleyball and some that weren't as clean, but we stayed the course. Down the stretch, we stuck to our game plan and stayed disciplined, and that made the difference."
LeBron James' daughter, Zhuri, kicks off the 2026 @leagueonevb Championship in Long Beach 👏 pic.twitter.com/hgXth4DNoz
— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) April 17, 2026
Salt Lake had a 24-22 lead in the fourth set, but Eggleston brought Austin back to tie at 24-all on her 11th kill. Gray, the Canadian international who returned stateside after a decade-long pro career in Korea, Italy and Turkiye, then broke the 20-kill mark with her final touch of the extra-point fourth set to set up a decisive fifth.
Saturday's championship final will begin at 6 p.m. MT on USA Network between the No. 2-rated offense in the six-team league and arguably the best defense led by Salt Lake's two-time LOVB Libero of the Year in Manami Kojima, the Japanese international who posted a league-record 256 digs in the regular season and supplied 19 Thursday night.
The two teams have history in the nascent league, too, including Austin's reverse sweep of Salt Lake in last year's quarterfinals en route to a league championship. But Salt Lake returned nearly its entire roster from last year, added just two players, and opened the season 8-1 before rallying into the postseason on the final weekend of the regular season.
"It was a goal of ours at the beginning of this season to win the championship," Poulter told the media before the championship. "We've had quite the roller coaster of a season, both in terms of injuries and then just our record.
"I mean, to start 8-1 and then finish 10-10, it's quite the flip. So, to come out of that really significant downswing and be playing our best right now and be in a viable position to reach the goals that we set is really cool. Knowing that our team is going to look dramatically different next year and we're not going to all be together, it's kind of like the last hurrah."
