Geoducks Take A Set From EOU Before Falling
When you have a young team, making small strides becomes something to celebrate.
That was the case for The Evergreen State College's volleyball team Friday night in CRC Gymasium as the Geoducks won the third set before eventually succumbing to the Eastern Oregon Mountaineers, the NAIA's No. 7-ranked team, by set scores of 25-17, 25-23, 28-26, 25-9.
The Mountaineers (19-1 overall, 14-0 CCC) hit .252 as a team, including an impressive .483 in the deciding fourth set, to finally put away the pesky Geoducks (3-16, 3-11).
The first set went pretty much according to script as the Mountaineers hit .314,led by Sierra Linke with four kills in six attempts, to take the 25-17 victory, that despite a set-high five kills by Natalie Taylor.
Things heated up in the next two sets as Evergreen battled Eastern Oregon on even terms.
There were four ties and three leads changes in the second set, the last tie coming at 15-15 on Taylor's kill for the home team. Eastern Oregon scored the next four points and later led 23-19 after a kill by Amanda Miller, but the Geoducks were up to the challenge. They scored three points in row on two Kaela Carnes kills sandwiched around a kill by Kylie Kytan, and that whittled Eastern Oregon's lead to 23-22. The teams then traded points before Isabelle Statkus finished the set with a kill for the Mountaineers.
There were 15 ties and six lead changes in the exciting third set. The Geoducks hit .243 while the Mountaineers managed a .158 percentage. Taylor had five kills and Jorden Porter finished off four of her seven attack attempts to trigger the Evergreen set victory.
Neither team led by more than one until the Mountaineers ran off three straight points to take a 15-11 advantage, and they stayed on top until Evergreen finally tied the score at 21-21. The Geoducks took the lead and served for the set four times before they finally ended it on a kill by Porter.
That set loss only served to fire up the Mountaineers, who rolled to the big win in the final set. Miller was perfect in four attack attempts to lead the visitors.
Evergreen's Taylor led all players with 17 kills on 54 attempts, and Porter finished the match with 13 kills. Kytan had 37 assists and Kelsey Delagrange had 15 digs to lead four Evergreen players in double figures in that category.
Miller had a strong match with 16 kills on 41 attempts for Eastern Oregon, which got 45 assists from Rachelle Chamberlain. Emily Nay recorded 10 kills, one solo block and three block assists and Piper Cantrell led all players with 19 digs.
Both teams return to conference play tomorrow, Evergreen hosting College of Idaho and Eastern Oregon playing at Northwest.