Eastern Washington defends home court on Senior Night

Saturday, November 14

Cheney, Wash.

3:00 PM (MT)

Montana

Eastern Washington

Photo by: EWU Athletics / Nic Cunningham

11/14/2026 5:39:00 PM | Volleyball

By: Montana Sports Information

Montana fell at Eastern Washington on Saturday night in four sets as the Eagles celebrated Senior Night with the surprise return of star outside hitter Kalista Lukovich. Eastern Washington won 25-18, 21-25, 25-19, 25-14 to move one game ahead of Montana in the league standings and sweep the season series over the Griz.

Lukovich hadn't played in a month and Eastern went 2-6 without the nation's leader in attacks per set. The key piece in their offense returned for 12 kills and 13 digs on a match-high 43 attacks.

Her offense, combined with the Big Sky's top blocking defense, was enough for the Eagles to get the win. They registered 15 blocks on the night to just one for Montana.

"I thought that Eastern Washington competed well and fought through points and managed rallies much better than we did," head coach Allison Lawrence said. "I think they definitely put us in a position to be as high error as we were."

The aggressive service game that led Montana (8-19, 4-12 Big Sky) to a win on Thursday night hurt the team in the early stages of Saturday's match. Five of the first 10 points that Eastern Washington (11-17, 5-11 Big Sky) scored in the match came off service errors from the Grizzlies.

The Griz finished the night with 13 service errors and just two aces while Eastern Washington had eight aces to just seven errors.

Montana was in the set despite the early errors thanks to impressive hitting numbers, but they couldn't find a way to slow down the Eagles in the first. Eastern Washington went on 1 6-1 run to take a 14-9 lead and never let Montana back within four points. EWU took the first 25-18.

The Griz hit .345 in the first set with 15 kills and just five errors. They finished with five service errors and zero aces while allowing Eastern Washington to hit .542 with 14 kills and just one single attacking error.

"I want to say no, but I think that had to have been a confidence booster for them," Lawrence said. "She's an incredible player and I think they felt relaxed and aggressive. I didn't think that we seemed especially tight, we hit well in the first set and felt loose in a way. But we were just high error from the service line and made uncharacteristic ball handling errors."

Eastern Washington threatened to pull away in the match in the second set, keeping the offense rolling to go up 15-9 on Montana to get within 10 points of making it two sets to zero.

Backed against the wall, the Grizzlies found the right rotation, starting with a serve from Cagle. While the league leader in aces didn't register a service ace during the run, she threw the Eagle attack out of rhythm to allow Montana to go on a run.

The Griz scored nine straight points with Delaney Russell registering three kills, Alex Stone adding a pair, and Sydney Pierce recording a kill and a solo block. After looking like they might be down 2-0, Montana suddenly had an 18-15 lead in the second and all the momentum on their side.

The Eagles pulled back within two points late, but the Griz closed it out with three of the final four points to win the second 25-21.

In the third set, Eastern Washington erased a Grizzly lead with a 5-0 scoring run that made it 12-9 in favor of the hosts. The Griz tied it at 12-all, but EWU slowly built the lead up to with multiple short runs down the stretch.

The Eagles took the third set 25-19 behind their impressive defensive effort. Montana committed 10 attacking errors in the set and hit in the negatives as they couldn't get past the impressive Eagle block.

The defense finished it off for Eastern Washington in the fourth set. They used a 7-0 run in the middle portion to go ahead 14-7 and pulled away for the 25-14 win.

"It felt like in each set, even though we had some rhythm, we were very high error and uncharacteristically tentative in other parts of our game," Lawrence said. "You could kind of feel it seep through the match."

Delaney Russell had a team-high 11 kills and added 11 digs for a double-double. Kaylee Paulson had 10 kills and Alex Stone provided nine.

Gracie Cagle had a near-triple-double with a team-high 19 assists, 10 digs, and seven kills.

Montana returns home for the final time on Monday night when they face Northern Colorado at 7:00 p.m. The regular season comes to a close on Friday, Nov. 20 at Montana State.

The Grizzlies will need to win both matches to pass Eastern Washington in the standings as the Eagles are a game up and hold the tiebreaker over Montana. The top eight teams make the Big Sky Tournament beginning on Nov. 23.

"It's an exciting week. We have a big match on Monday and then it's a rivalry week," Lawrence said. "We knew this turnaround would be rigorous and knew that winning this match would put us in a better position going into this week. I think we will see what this team wants and believes and what they are willing to fight for. Anything can happen and we have seen that, so it's up to us and I think we have the pieces that we need."