Eagles split weekend matches
Photo courtesy of Jim Sharp
The Eagles withstood their opening weekend of competitions, splitting their four games.
Chadron State finished Friday and Saturday, with a win and a loss each day, in the Steel City Showcase in Pueblo, Colorado. As of Sept. 8, Chadron State holds a record of 2-2 and sit fifth in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference.
“I’m happy that we came away with a couple wins,” Head Volleyball Coach Jennifer Stadler said. “We were just hoping to learn a lot about ourselves over the weekend and compete. I think we did a good job with both of those.”
Friday morning started the Eagles’ games, first playing University of Mary of Bismarck, North Dakota, and lost, 2-3. CSC took the first two sets, 25-14 and 25-23, but were unable to finish the match as Mary took the final three sets: 19-25, 19-25 and 14-16.
Chadron State earned 58 kills for a hitting average of .165 to Mary’s 54 kills and .190 hitting average.
In their second Friday match, the Eagles swept University of Minnesota-Crookston in three sets, all 25-17.
Chadron State finished with a .275 hitting average, 37 kills and 11 aces, while Minnesota-Crookston average .134 with 31 kills and one ace.
“I obviously would’ve hoped for a 4-0 weekend, we have all the tools that we could need to win.” Amelia Berg, senior of Fort Collins, Colorado, said. “We were able to work out our kinks and find things that are priorities to work on which is great.”
The momentum from the Eagles’ win continued into Saturday for their three-set win over Fort Hays State College: 25-21, 25-17, 25-16.
Both teams recorded 34 kills, but Chadron State came out on top with eight aces to the Tigers’ two, 11 blocks to four, and a hitting average of .237 to the Tigers’ .077 average.
Against Rollins College, Chadron State were pushed to another five-set game, winning the first and third sets but taking the loss by the end of the fifth: 25-22, 21-25, 25-18, 22-25 and 8-15.
The Eagles finished their last game with a .049 hitting average to Rollins’ .085. Chadron State had 43 kills to Rollins’ 46, and Rollins outnumber CSC for aces, 11 to eight. The Eagles took the blocks though with 11 to Rollins’ nine.
“We had some really great moments, some really consistent moments and also some non-consistent moment,” Stadler said. “Overall, we did a really good job of battling and just looking forward to building off of those positive things that we took from the weekend.”
Throughout the weekend, Berg led the Eagles with 41 kills on 93 attacks throughout the weekend. She also provided an assist against Rollins College and recorded 19 kills against Mary with a .247 hitting percentage for that game.
“I feel that I played well, I was overall pretty consistent throughout the four games,” Berg said. “I still have so much work to put in and can get better throughout the season.”
Rylee Greiman, junior of Windsor, Colorado, took over the libero position to earn 73 digs over the weekend. She also recorded 13 sets, two ace serves and one kill.
Berg and Greiman were named Steel City Showcase All-Tournament Team, announced by CSU-Pueblo Head Volleyball Coach Austin Albers. Berg earned 2.88 points per set, while Greiman is currently ranked fourth in the RMAC with 4.56 digs per set.
“We put her (Greiman) into a position that she hasn’t played over the past couple of years,” Stadler said. “I thought she did a really good job of taking ownership of that position and pushing herself to play really well.”
Olivia Moten-Schell, sophomore of Billings, Montana, was the second leader in kills for the Eagles at 28 kills of 86 attacks.
Lexi Hurtado, junior of Aurora, Colorado, was right behind with 27 kills through out the weekend and 97 attacks.
Audrey Bennett, freshman of Lenexa, Kansas, made her Eagles debut and earned the most assists for the Eagles with 86 sets. Bennett also attacked 73 times, killing 20 of those hits.
“Just getting a little bit more consistent, especially during the tight parts of the match or the ending parts of the match,” Stadler said. “I saw some matches where we hit really well as a team and then some matches where we didn’t. So just getting a little bit more consistent offensively for us.”
The Eagles will continue their season in Kearney at the Rosella Meier UNK Fall Classic and begin against UNK at 11 a.m., Friday. They will also play West Texas A&M of Canyon, Southern Nazarene University of Bethany, Oklahoma.