Concordia had four players post a 'double-double' on Friday night against the Mountaineers.
Balanced Attack Boosts Cavs Against Mountaineers
PORTLAND, Ore.—After failing to seize a 2-0 lead, Concordia bounced back with consecutive sets to defeat Eastern Oregon 3-1 (25-21, 23-25, 25-17, 25-22) in Cascade Collegiate Conference volleyball action on Friday night.
With the win, Concordia improved to 14-10 on the year and10-5 in the CCC while EOU dropped to 16-7 overall and 11-4 in league action. Both teams have five games remaining in their regular season schedule with Concordia hosting The College of Idaho, currently tied atop the league standings with a 13-2 record, tomorrow at 7 p.m.
Eastern Oregon will travel to Salem, Ore., to face Corban College.
Four players reached double figures in kills for the Cavaliers. Lindsey Fryer paced the squad with 19 kills against a single error for a sparkling .545 attack rate. Raluca Dinca added 15 kills while Mariana Toscano struck for 14 and Jamie Richards with 13. Fryer, Dinca and Richards all recorded season-high totals in the match.
“Any time you have that kind of balanced both off and def it puts a lot of pressure on the other team,” Concordia head coach Christopher Duenow said. “This is the type of performance that we established as a barometer for us early in the season. It was a quintessential team win tonight.”
After giving up the first point of the match, Concordia went on a tear by accumulating a nine-point lead with the score 21-12. An ace by Danielle Kelley would pull the Mountaineers to within three with the score resting at 22-19, but an attacking error and kills by Dinca and Fryer would terminate the match at 25-21.
After a tie at 7-7 in the second set, Concordia pulled away to an 18-12 lead before the Mountaineers stormed back with a 10-point run to eventually even the match at 1-1.
Following seven ties in the first 16 points of the third set, a five-point run highlighted by a Toscano kill catapulted the Cavs to a 25-17 win for a 2-1 lead. The fourth set mirrored the third with the Cavs jumping out to an early lead and extending to a five-point advantage with the score 15-10. A 7-2 run would square the set at 17 all, while a kill Melanie Ceciliani kill would give the Mounties their first lead of the set at 21-20.
The Cavs would return the point with a clutch kill by Erika Doremus. The two teams would trade points after an EOU kill by Julie Butterfield and a CU crush by Dinca for a 22-22 score.
Concordia would get the final three points of the set to end the match with a pair of Richards’ kills bracketing an attack error for the 25-22 finale.
“Erika (Doremus) came off the bench with some huge kills for us in the end,” Duenow said. “And Jamie (Richards) had her best all-around day for us both as an attacker and her solid defensive play.”
Skyler Kamaka posted a career-best 56 assists, s even dish improvement over her previous season-best of 49 assists in a four-set match at Oregon Tech on Sept. 20.
Kim Lindow and Richards tied for the team lead with 21 digs while EOU’s Sareena Simpson notched a match0high 26 digs. The Mountaineers were led by Grace Deboodt’s 16 kills while Jessica Lea tallied a team-high 18 assists.