Women Defeat Union 3-1
September 4, 2014
The Faith Eagle volleyball team traveled to Lincoln, Nebraska this past Tuesday to take on the Union College Warriors in a weekday contest. Faith was able to win the final three games after losing game won for a 3-1 match victory. The Eagles are now 3-2 on the year.
Coming off a successful weekend of playing three NCCAA nationally ranked teams in the annual Spikefest Tournament, the Eagles started the Union match sluggish. Numerous ball handling turnovers, low serve receive execution and a zero attack% allowed the Warriors to take set one 25-15. Starting set two the Eagle coaching staff adjusted defensive alignments to better defend Union's attacking. "We needed to make defensive adjustments to Union's hitting, so we moved the middle backs off the block to cover roll shots and tipping," cited Nihart. Faith captured the second by implementing the defensive adjustments and attaining a match high 34% attacking mark.
The Eagles had their best performance of the night in set three jumping out to early 6-1 and 13-6 leads. Sophomore middle hitter Alyssa Larson became the go to person with a 36% attack. The Eagles defended much better with a match high 52 digs and captured a 25-13 win. It appeared they were on their way to an easy victory, but not in this annual tug of war with Union.
Union put pressure on Faith taking a quick 4-1 lead and holding back the Eagles attack. The Warrior's, behind junior Matti Jenks created opportunities and gained a 19-17 lead. The Eagles tied the score at 20-20 only to have the Warrior's execute a side-out for a 21-20 lead. Faith received kills from junior middle Kim Post to extend the lead to 23-21 and finished the set and match with two unforced Union turnovers. Post led the Eagles with 12 kills followed by Larson with 10, while junior defensive specialist JoJo Hodak led the team defensively with 52 digs.
The Eagles are back in action on Thursday and Friday in Minneapolis, MN, with games against North Central University, Trinity Bible College, and Providence University College. All thre games count for region seeding, and will be played at North Central University.