The Chadron State College volleyball team took its second loss in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference schedule, to drop to 5-2 in the league standings, and 7-9 overall, in three sets (25-16, 25-19, 25-23) on the road at New Mexico Highlands. The Cowgirls evened the season series against the Eagles at 1-1. The loss snapped a five-match streak in the RMAC for the Eagles.
“We can’t get complacent with how we’ve been playing these past few weeks,” said CSC Head Volleyball Coach Jennifer Stadler. “We still have a lot of things to get better at, and our focus needs to be on our improvement. Unfortunately, we didn’t play to our abilities tonight, and Highlands played a good match.”
The Eagles struggled with their offense, hitting .042. sophomore Amber Harvey and freshman Bella Adams led the team with seven and six kills respectively. Adams hit .417 on the night.
The Cowgirls hit .220 on the night totaling 42 kills compared to the Eagles’ 27.
The Eagles also struggled defensively, as sophomore Aiyana Fujiyama only had two blocks on the night. The Eagles only recorded four blocks for the match.
The Cowgirls opened up on an 8-0 run to open up the first set. NMHU recorded three serving aces and had two kills from Jontara West.
The Eagles never recovered. They trimmed the lead down to 13-19 but that was the closest the Eagles got to a comeback. An attack error from junior Rylee Greiman gave the point need for NMHU to take the first set.
New Mexico Highlands opened the second set on a 3-0 run before the Eagles fought back and took the lead at 4-3.
Both teams went back and forth as there were two lead changes and three ties before the set was tied at 10-10.
NMHU went on a 10-5 run sparked by a kill from Terayah Stukes to go up 20-15. CSC was not able to catch up as they were only able to score four more points before another attack error by the Eagles gave the final point to NMHU.
CSC jumped out to a 6-1 lead in the third set.
A 4-0 run put NMHU back in it and tied the set at 10-10. NMHU got its first lead at 11-12 off a kill from Terayah Stukes.
Both teams battled it out as neither team led by more than three for most of the period. The Eagles took a three-point lead at 16-13 from an Amber Harvey kill. They were able to hold off the Cowgirls, until CSC took a 22-18 lead, but NMHU went on a 7-1 run to end the set and take the match.
The Eagles will visit Adams State on Saturday October, 1st.