CEU tops CSI for the first time in school history
History was made for the College of Eastern Utah volleyball team last weekend. For the first time in school history, the CEU Golden Eagles defeated the College of Southern Idaho Eagles. Besides CSI, the laldy Eagles also took on Snow College, Salt Lake Community College and North Idaho College during the past two weekends.
This archived article was written by: Nate Davis
History was made for the College of Eastern Utah volleyball team last weekend. For the first time in school history, the CEU Golden Eagles defeated the College of Southern Idaho Eagles. Besides CSI, the laldy Eagles also took on Snow College, Salt Lake Community College and North Idaho College during the past two weekends.
First of the four-game series for CEU was the in-state rival Snow College Badgers. The Eagles traveled to Ephraim to take on the Badgers, and were looking to continue their season dominance against Snow, but the Badgers had other plans. CEU had previously beaten the Badgers in a preseason tourtnament and at home.
The Eagles came out strong in the first set, and challenged SC, but fell 26-24. Snow took control in the second set, winning 25-18. The Badgers took the third set, and the match 25-22.
Head Coach Brent Martindale said “We didn’t play badly. We just didn’t want it as bad as Snow did.” Barbara Jardim stood out for the Eagles in the loss racking up 11 kills.
Next for the Eagles was the always tough Salt Lake Community College Bruins. CEU came out of the gate strong, and won the first set by a score of 25-15. But the Eagles were unable to continue their strong play and dropped the next three sets to lose the match 25-17, 25-16, 25-14. Once again Jardim played well for CEU with 15 kills; Sabrina Simas also contributed 13 kills.
After two tough loses the prior weekend, the Eagles returned to Price to get ready for the no. 3 team in the nation CSI. Martindale said that after the loss to Snow that “it made us get a little angry, and we battled through practice all week with a real intent. And I think it showed against CSI.”
Before this game, CEU had won only one set against CSI in the volleyball history of the two schools. It was a long hard-fought match, going the full-five sets. In the end the Eagles pulled out the win, 25-23, 25-16, 27-25, 25-15 and 15-13. This was one of the best performances in CEU volleyball history. Martindale said it was the best moment he has had at CEU.
The win over CSI was a team effort. Jardim led the team with 17 kills, three blocks and 11 digs. Alexis Adams had 13 kills and a match high 18 digs, and Megan Garvin had 11 kills and two blocks. Chloe Wilson came up with seven blocks. Cami Hussey had 14 digs. Julia Potts had 45 assists, 15 digs and 26 serves. As a team CEU only committed five-service errors in the match.
After the big win against CSI on Friday, the Eagles looked to pull off another huge upset when they took on no. 1 ranked North Idaho College Cardinals.
The Cardinals were too much for CEU and Martindale said that “we stayed with them in each game, they were too tough for too long and beat us in 3 games, 25-16, 25-22 and 25-22”
On Friday, Oct. 30, 2009, CEU will finish regular season play against Colorado Northwestern College in Rangely Colo. The Spartans are in last place in the conference and have already been defeated by the ladies from CEU.
