March 28, 2024

Volleyball is over

This archived article was written by: David Osborne Jr.

The Utah State University Eastern Golden Eagles finished up their regular season playing their last two games at home in the Bunnell-Dmitrich Athletic Center before playing in the Region 18 Tournament in Salt Lake City, Utah on November 8.
The beginning of the end for the 2013 volleyball season started when the Golden Eagles hosted the Snow College Badgers. The Badgers started hot but fortunately the Golden Eagles persevered and were able to take the game to four sets before falling, three sets to one; 25-5, 21-25, 25-21,25- 15. Throughout the four sets, the team had 21 errors but that was comparable to Snow’s 19, so neither team had a distinct advantage coming from that area of the stat sheet. Amanda Freestone led the team with 7.5 points, Melissa Judd added another 6.5, points while Koralys Gonzalez rounded out the top three scorers for the Golden Eagles with 6.0 points. Paige Peterson led the team with 11 assists and Jessica Wilcox added 13 digs.
The final game of the regular season was against the Salt Lake Community College Bruins who are currently ranked seventh in the nation. SLCC certainly spoiled the last game of the season for the Golden Eagles winning the match in three sets; 25-12, 25-14, 29-27. After the first two sets going quickly to the Bruins the Golden Eagles were able to make the third a much closer game by forcing SLCC into 15 errors. Whitney Riffle led the Golden Eagles with 9.0 points, Carly Dalton added 5.0 and both
Gonzalez and Wilcox added another 4.5 points apiece. Peterson again led the team with assists with 10 more against the Bruins while Astraya Johnson had 10 digs to help the team.
The Golden Eagles participated in the Scenic West Athletic Conference Region 18 tournament as the fifth place team in the conference and faced the fourth ranked team Snow College. Snow College defeated USU Eastern in the first round before losing to SLCC. The Bruins went on to beat the North Idaho College Cardinals to be the region champions. Two USU Eastern players were given post-season awards, Freestone was named to the Second Team All-Region 18 as the opposite hitter and Gonzalez was named as an All-Region 18 Honorable mention as an outside hitter.