CEU drops pair of home showdowns to SLCC, Snow
By TERRY WILLIS
Sun Advocate reporter
The CEU Golden Eagles played two tough opponents at home over the weekend. They came away with a pair of losses. On Friday evening Oct.10, SLCC defeated CEU 25-18, 25-19, 27-25.
Then on Saturday Snow defeated CEU 25-19, 20-25, 25-20, 25-12.
Too many errors at the wrong time was how Coach Brent Martindale summed up the Friday match. The Golden Eagles were never able to climb out of holes dug in game one. SLCC's first eight points were courtesy of five errors from CEU. Even so the score was only 11-8 for the Bruins until SLCC went on a 3-0 run. Game two was much the same, but ended with CEU going on a small run at the end.
Game three was when CEU finally played without as many errors and they seemed to control the tempo. The Bruins fought back to tie it at 24, but CEU managed to again gain control and served for a second game point 25-24, but the serve went long. Then a bit of controversy occurred when a CEU hitter hit a ball that went out, but appeared to have touched a SLCC blocker. The line judge called the touch which would have given CEU the ball, but the head referee over ruled the touch call and gave SLCC the ball, the point and momentum. After several minutes of arguing, SLCC served and CEU was unable to return, ending the game and match.
Even with the loss,Karissa Law had 10 kills and a .409 hitting percentage. Six of her kills were in game three alone. Nicole Graham added kills.
Coach Martindale expressed his frustration, "I was obviously disappointed in the way we played tonight. We had a great crowd, and a chance to show that we have improved. There were times we played well, but we did not execute the way we prepared. They are a good team, but we are too."
He went on to say, "The last referee call was very disappointing, and even though it may have been a cause of how we lost game three, it was not why we lost the match. We made way too many errors, and you can't make that many errors against the number five ranked team in the nation. But it really did play a factor in game three and we had really worked hard to get back in the match. Who knows? We win game three, then anything can happen. One of our strengths has been our serving, and it just wasn't there tonight. Neither was our hitting."
On Saturday the Badgers came in swinging and serving and blocking and never really let CEU in. Even though the two teams have compared evenly this season, the Golden Eagles could not take advantage on their home court. After winning game two, CEU did not benefit from the momentum shift and lost the last two games.
Law again led with eight kills, Alexis Adams had seven while Megan Garvin added five kills
"Well, what can I say? We got humbled today. We really thought we were an equal team or better, and we were not able to prove it. They outplayed us on almost all levels," summed up Martindale. "We just seem to be limping through right now. We just didn't have the fight that I really thought we had."
CEU next plays their final two home games this weekend. On Friday they go against North Idaho College at 7pm, and Saturday, they play the College of Southern Idaho at 3 p.m.
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