(Brock Voth, CSC Sports Information)
The Chadron State College volleyball team will be hosting a pair of Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference matches this weekend in the Chicoine Center. South Dakota Mines (10-14, 7-9 RMAC) visits on Friday November, 4th, followed by Black Hills State (4-20, 3-13 RMAC) on Saturday November 5th.
The Eagles (7-18, 5-11 RMAC) are currently sitting 11th in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference standings, two matches behind UCCS and South Dakota Mines for playoff contention. They will need to win both of this weekend’s matches, with help from a few other RMAC contenders, in order to qualify for the conference postseason as one of the top eight teams in regular season play.
The Eagles defeated both teams earlier in the season in five sets, while on the road.
In the previous match up against South Dakota Mines, the Eagles hit .188, while totaling 50 kills. Amber Harvey led the way with 12 kills that night. Aiyana Fujiyama led the Eagles with .300 hitting.
CSC is coming off a similar performance offensively against Westminster hitting .175 in its latest match. Bella Adams leads the Eagles hitting .255 on the season. Teammate Fujiyama is also hitting over .200 with a .206 clip.
South Dakota Mines is hitting .190 as a team, but only managed .163 in the two teams’ previous collision. The .190 hitting percentage ranks the Hardrockers seventh within the RMAC. The Hardrockers’ Jacey Koethe hits .309 on the season, which is 10th in the RMAC, and averages 3.46 kills per set, which is fourth most.
The Hardrockers have five other players hitting over .200.
Koethe also leads the team in blocks, with the sixth-best average in the league of exactly one per set. South Dakota Mines ranks seventh in the conference, in that category, with 1.78 total blocks per set.
Black Hills has an elite defender in its backcourt as well, with Haedyn Rhoades who average the league’s second best 5.17 digs per set. The Yellowjackets rank fourth as a team.
The Eagles hit .150 last time these two teams met, totaling 48 kills, led by Hurtado who had 11.
Defensively CSC recorded 13 blocks, led by Fujiyama with nine, and 80 digs, led by Schaefer with 20.
The Yellowjackets will lean on Madison Hoopman for the offensive attack as she is hitting .183 on the season along with 257 kills. Hoopman ranks ninth in the RMAC for kills.
Both Rhoades and Hoopman are daughters of CSC Athletics Hall of Famers.
The match with Black Hills State on Saturday is senior night.