Volleyball season comes to a disappointing end
With an already tough regular season for the College of Eastern Utah’s women’s volleyball team, they had more chances to show everyone that they were a better team than they had shown throughout the year the past few weeks.
They started that campaign against rival Snow College Bagders. Snow beat CEU easily in their last meeting 25-19,21-25,25-20,25-12 and wanted show that that game was not a fluke.
In the first set, CEU played great and put it to the Badgers and ended up getting the win 25-12.
This archived article was written by: Riley Spears
With an already tough regular season for the College of Eastern Utah’s women’s volleyball team, they had more chances to show everyone that they were a better team than they had shown throughout the year the past few weeks.
They started that campaign against rival Snow College Bagders. Snow beat CEU easily in their last meeting 25-19,21-25,25-20,25-12 and wanted show that that game was not a fluke.
In the first set, CEU played great and put it to the Badgers and ended up getting the win 25-12.
Going into the second set, EU again played their own tempo and showed that they wanted it more than Snow picking up the 25-18 win.
In the third set everythingstarted to go wrong for the Eagles. Snow started to play better and evenly, going on to win 27-25.
Wanting to wrap up the game and get a much deserved win, CEU couldn’t stop the Badgers and lost again 25-21.
With the game tied at two sets a piece both teams played hard, but a couple of hitting errors by CEU cost them the set and the match 16-14.
Coach Brent Martindale said, “It was an exhausting match. We did so many things well that it put us in the position to win, but we just could not complete the job. We had eleven missed serves in the match, but the two in game five were the worst. It’s like the worst double- edged sword. I want to be happy that we are playing well enough to be close, but unhappy that we give them a few too many errors to give it away. I am happy for the girls that we are peaking at the right time for the tournament. I just hope it’s not too late to put it all together.”
Alexis Adams led the Eagles with 18 kills followed by Karissa Law who had 11 kills and an ace serve. Nicole Graham put together a nice game with eight kills with Marissa Crookston adding seven kills and two blocks, and Megan Garvin five kills and a block. Setter Alexandra Schuda had 36 assists and three aces.
After the disappointing and exhausting loss to Snow, the Eagles then played the number-five team in the nation, Salt Lake Community College Bruins. SLCC handed it to EU in the last meeting winning 25-17, 25-19, 27-25.
Martindale said, “Salt Lake is tough and do not make many errors. Our team is second in the conference in ace serves per game, and we were only able to get one ace the entire match. They are a disciplined team with good ball control, good hitters and a good setter. That is why they are ranked in the top five in the nation.”
With this being their last game of the season, all hopes turned to making a run in the conference tournament and get a good start against SLCC.
In the first set CEU was obviously tired coming out to a 20-9 deficit. After a timeout CEU made a 9-5 run but it was not enough to make the game to interesting, losing 25-18.
In the second set the Eagles played much better and with a score of 22-21, SLCC took a timeout. After the timeout SLCC scored three unanswered points winning 25-21.
With one more set to go for SLCC took it to CEU. Eastern couldn’t get anything started and lost 25-17.
Martindale hoped the team would focus on its final goal of winning the first round of the tournament. “We truly believe we are playing well enough to stay with any team in the conference, and on a neutral floor, now is the time.”
The weekend left EU with a final conference record of 2-8, which put them as the fifth seed. They got the opportunity to play Snow College in the first round.
CEU ended up losing the match against Snow, ending their season.
