Eagle volleyball drops exhibition match to CWU

CHENEY - In its lone exhibition before officially starting the 2021 season next week, the Eastern Washington University volleyball team dropped a five-set exhibition match to Central Washington University on Aug. 20.

Eastern Washington had a 24-21 lead after a 4-0 run in the opening set, but Central Washington responded and fought off set point three times to tie the set. The Eagles evened things at 25-25, but CWU found the final two points to win 27-25. 

The Eagles bounced back in set two. Trailing 16-11, a kill by Sadie Bacon fired off a 6-0 lead to retake a 17-16 advantage. Central Washington would pull ahead 21-19 after a short 3-0 spurt, but the Eagles closed the set on a 6-1 run to win 25-22 and even the match 1-1. 

It was all Central Washington in set three as they jumped out to a 10-1 lead. Eastern would cut the deficit to 14-11, but the Wildcats went on a 6-0 run to close the set and won 25-14, regaining the advantage in the match 2-1. 

EWU needed to stay alive in set four and they did just that. It was a back-and-forth affair, but the Eagles found themselves up 20-18 and sealed the set four win by closing on a 5-1 run to take the 25-19 victory and tie the match again. 

Set five featured 10 ties and five lead changes. With EWU up 8-8, Central used a 4-0 run to take a 10-8 lead. The Wildcats were up 14-12 when Ka'ehukaiiha'amaina'e Keala and Bacon came up with back-to-back kills to fight off match point and knot things up at 14-14.

Maya McClellan used a solo block to cap a 3-0 run and take a 15-14 lead, but CWU would tie it once more. Bacon came up with a clutch kill for match point, but the Wildcats clawed back with three straight points and won 18-16 to take the 3-2 win.

McClellan led the team with 11 kills while Keala and Bacon each had nine. Ellie Garrett and Lindsey Russell split the setting duties, each totaling 21 assists. Another freshman,, Makenna Collins led the way with two service aces in her unofficial debut. The Eagles totaled 15 blocks on the day, with five players recording at least two solo blocks. Ashlyn Blotzer and Keala each had three. Keala also had eight digs along with Sophia Spoja. 

"We've been working hard on our blocks, so I'm excited to see that we had 15 today," head coach Leslie Flores-Cloud said. "We were giving our defense a lot of opportunities which was good. We gave a lot of players opportunities to see what we could do and I'm excited that we have a lot more depth this year. We need to get healthy and back in the swing of things."  

Eastern Washington hit .128 on the night with 53 kills and 34 errors on 148 attempts. The Wildcats hit .146 with 54 kills and they also had 34 errors on 137 attempts. CWU had seven aces to Eastern's four and significantly out-dug the Eagles, 53 to 39. Eastern had 15 blocks to Central's 10. 

Eastern officially opens up the season next week at the Idaho Memorial Tournament host by the University of Idaho in nearby Moscow, Idaho. The Eagles play Grand Canyon on Friday, Aug. 27 at 12:30 p.m. and close play the following day against Portland, also at 12:30.