Eagles struggle in weekend matches
During the longest road trip of the season the Chadron State Eagles’ volleyball team pulled off a nerve-racking win against New Mexico Highlands University on Friday, but Saturday suffered a loss to Colorado State University at Pueblo.
Still winless against RMAC opponents, the New Mexico Highlands University Cowgirls were more than competitive against the Eagles. During Friday’s match in Las Vegas, New Mexico, the Eagles had to fight to five sets, eventually winning 23-25, 21-25, 24-26, 28-26, and 15-8. On Saturday the Eagles lost to CSU Pueblo in three, 13-25, 21-25, and 12-25.
Against the Cowgirls, the Eagles were down 16-7 in the fourth set, but battled back and used a five-point run to close the score from 11-19 to 16-19. At 17-21, another Eagles streak put the team just one point behind at 20-21. From then on, the Eagles and the Cowgirls fought back and forth until a kill by Chandler Hageman, redshirt junior of Chadron, gave the Eagles their first lead, 26-25. CSC went on to win the set 28-26.
The fourth set comeback put momentum in the Eagles’ favor and left the Cowgirls on the defensive.
In the fifth set the scores remained fairly even until Rylee Greiman, freshman of Windsor, Colorado, secured an ace for the Eagles and Highlands’ Meranda Romero, freshman of Espanola, New Mexico, made a service error to give the Eagles an 8-6 lead.
Shortly after, CSC went on a three-point run that led to Highlands calling their second and final time-out of the set with the score 11-7. The timeout was unable to help Highlands stop CSC’s momentum as the Eagles walked away with the set and match win, 15-8.
The kill leaders for the Eagles were Hageman at 14, Aracely Hernandez, sophomore of Greeley, Colorado, had 12, and tied at 10 were Shelby Schouten, senior of Alton, Iowa, and Greiman. The Eagles hit .200 in the match. Tori Strickbine, freshman of Stillwell, Kansas, had 45 assists.
Defensively CSC had three players with double-digit digs led by Ashton Burditt, senior of Spearfish, South Dakota, who had 34, Greiman had 17, and Strickbine had 11. The block was led by Hageman with 10; Hernandez had 5, and Schouten had 4.
On Saturday against the Thunderwolves, the Eagles lost in three, but showed signs of a comeback in the second set.
At 13-18 the Eagles used a three-point streak to bring the score to 16-18, but from then on, Pueblo out-played Chadron winning the set 25-21.
Kill leaders for the night were Schouten with 6, Greiman had 5, and Timmi Keisel, senior of Fleming, Colorado, had 3. The overall hitting percentage ended with .070. Strickbine led the team in assists with 11 along with 9 digs.
Defensively the Eagles had two players with double-digit digs. Leading was Burditt with 15 and Karli Noble, junior of Cheyenne, Wyoming, had 12.
The Eagles look to regain momentum while traveling again this following weekend to Colorado to battle the Orediggers at Colorado School of Mines and face off with the Mountain Lions at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. CSC hasn’t beat the Orediggers since at least 2012. Their all-time record against Colorado Springs is 3-7. The Mountain Lions won the last match up in four sets.