Eagles handle Grizzlies in four sets

Thursday, September 22

Missoula, Mont.

7:00 PM

Montana

3-8, 0-1BSC

Eastern Washington

6-4, 1-0BSC

Eastern Washington

Montana

9/22/2016 10:38:00 PM | Volleyball

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By: Montana Sports Information

The potential of youth, as well as the pitfalls, were both on display Thursday night as the Montana volleyball team fell in four sets to Eastern Washington at the West Auxiliary Gym, 20-25, 25-19, 13-25, 11-25, in the Big Sky Conference opener for both teams.

The things that allowed the Grizzlies (3-8, 0-1 BSC) to enter the contest on a modest two-match winning streak -- efficient hitting, high side-out percentage -- helped Montana even the match after dropping the opener, but it was all Eagles (6-4, 1-0 BSC) in sets three and four.

"We're young and still developing, and the athletes are still learning as they go," said second-year coach Brian Doyon, who lost to Eastern Washington for the first time after defeating the Eagles twice last fall.

"I think the second set is more indicative of the way we can play. Sets three and four showed some of our youth. I think we got down on ourselves and weren't able to brush it off like we'll be able to when we get more mature."

The Grizzlies were on their heels early against the hard-serving Eagles, who had Montana off-balance enough in the opening set that the Grizzlies had more hitting errors (nine) than kills (eight).

EWU setter Sophie Miller, who finished with 40 assists and two of the Eagles' eight service aces, served her team to the lead early, and Montana's -.026 hitting percentage didn't allow the Grizzlies to get closer than three over the back half of the set.

"They did a nice job on the service line, and that took us out of our ability to side out," said Doyon. "They were serving tough balls on us, but balls we should normally be able to handle. And then when we did get the pass, we weren't able to terminate from where we wanted to."

Eastern Washington opened the second set with a kill, a service ace and another kill to go up 3-0, prompting an early timeout by Doyon, who could see things slipping away.

"Right away in the second set we were on our heels and weren't focused on our passing and where we needed to be in terms of our positioning," said Doyon, who then watched his team show off its potential.

The Grizzlies hit .286 for the set while limiting the Eagles to .000. Tied at 18-18, Montana forced Eastern Washington into five straight errors, one receiving, four attacking, and pulled away to win 25-19 and even the match at 1-1.

"That timeout was just to let them know that we were okay and that we're still in this," said Doyon. "Let's just relax and pass the ball.

"We started to serve better as well, and that helped us out a lot. We were finally able to control a little bit more of the game."

That would be the last highlight for Montana. Eastern Washington raced out to early leads in both sets three and four, and hit .510 over the final two sets. The Grizzlies, back on their heels and off with their passing, hit .000.

Montana had 18 of its 29 attack errors in sets three and four. Eastern Washington had just three in those sets and produced a 21-kill, zero-error line in the decisive set to hit .545.

"At times this is a serving and passing game, and that's where they had the upper-hand in sets three and four," said Doyon. "In both sets we started out in a big deficit because we just weren't able to handle their serve."

After hitting .290 against Coppin State and .205 against Morehead State last weekend while picking up consecutive wins at MSU's tournament in Kentucky, Montana was back to .054 on Thursday night. In the sets they dropped, the Grizzlies hit -.010.

Sophomore outside hitters Alexis Urbach and Cassie Laramee combined for half of Montana's total kills, with 18, but they also had 16 of the team's 29 attack errors.

Freshman Ashley Watkins had seven kills on .294 hitting, and she matched senior Raegan Lindsey for the team lead with 14 assists. Senior libero Sadie Ahearn had 16 digs.

Eastern Washington hit .250 and out-blocked Montana 8.0-3.0.

Montana will host Idaho on Saturday at 2 p.m. The Vandals (6-7, 1-0 BSC) picked up a 25-23, 25-21, 23-25, 25-19 win at Montana State Thursday night.