Eagles meet CNCC in first game of State Tourney

This archived article was written by: Brooke Anderson

Volleyball finished up its last weekends of conference play with one win and three losses to prepare for the end of season tournament. They played the Snow College Badgers and the College of Southern Nevada Coyotes on Oct. 20-21, 2017. Then the College of Southern Idaho Golden Eagles and the Salt Lake Community College Bruins on Oct. 27-28, 2017.
In the game against Snow on Oct. 21, the Eagles lost 3-0. In the first set they lost 25-8 and 25-11 in the second set. After the tough losses, the team took the eight minute half-time break to regroup. They came out strong in the third set, but fell short with a 26-24 loss. Mackenzie Carter led the Eagles in the Snow game with seven kills, she was followed up by Sidney Springer and Tessa Riffle, both with five kills. Agatha Roese-Olsen led the team in assists with 16.
Following their devastating loss against the badgers, the Eagles matched up against the Coyotes on Saturday, the 21st. They came out strong in the first set with a 25-14 win. They shut the door on the coyotes with an impressive 25-20 win in the second set and a 25-18 win in the third.
Freshman Mackenzie Carter led the team with 12 kills, finishing off an impressive weekend for her. Carter was followed by Sidney Springer with 10 kills also led the team with a team high of six service aces against the Coyotes. Megan Gurr led the team with 14 digs.
The Eagles finished off regular conference play with two-top-20 NJCAA teams: College of Southern Idaho and Salt Lake Community College.
On Oct. 27 the Eagles traveled to Twin Falls, Idaho taking on the CSI Golden Eagles. The Eagles lost the first two sets 25-13 and 25-19. After halftime, the Eagles came back fighting, but still fell short with a 25-23 loss.
The team finished its season against the SLCC Bruins on Oct. 28. The Eagles lost 3-0 with individual set scores of 25-15, 25-14, and 26-24.
Agatha Roese-Olsen led the team with 22 assists and six digs. Regarding the weekend Roese-Olsen said the challenge the team faced this last weekend was that “the team [they] played are amazing teams and wanted to win just as bad as [the Eagles] did.”
Roese-Olsen shares hope by saying that the team “worked through some things to better trust each other.”
The Eagles continue play this weekend on Nov. 3-4 in its end of season tournament. As far as the tournament goes, sophomore captain Agatha Roese-Olsen says “bring it on… we are going to show up and some major upsets are going to happen.”
The tournament will be held at Snow College and the team plays the CNCC Spartans on Friday, Nov. 3 at 11a.m. The tournament is single elimination so if the team wins, it will play later Friday evening.
Scores and other information about the USUE Volleyball team will be updated on the Utah State Eastern Athletics website.