Time to regroup

After putting up a fight against Cal-State Northridge in a close loss and two more shutout losses against Northern Arizona and San Diego State, Idaho women’s volleyball comes back home from the Northern Arizona Fiesta Classic with nothing to show for it. 

File photo by Tony Marcolina | Argonaut Middle blocker Alyssa Schultz returns the ball during practice on Aug. 28 in Memorial Gym. The Vandals will be heading to Boise this week for the Bronco Volleyball Classic, and will play Boise State, Sacramento State and North Texas. The Vandals' first match will be Thursday at 6 p.m.

File photo by Tony Marcolina | Argonaut
Middle blocker Alyssa Schultz returns the ball during practice on Aug. 28 in Memorial Gym. The Vandals will be heading to Boise this week for the Bronco Volleyball Classic, and will play Boise State, Sacramento State and North Texas. The Vandals’ first match will be Thursday at 6 p.m.

This tournament consisted of perhaps the toughest teams that the Vandals have in their schedule all season. Idaho coach Debbie Buchanan came into the tournament with 199 career wins looking for 200 against a 3-0 CSUN on Friday. The Vandals showed some signs of improvement since the last time the two teams had faced putting up one more point on the board then last year– yet still fell 3-2.

The loss for the Vandals did not come without impressive personal feats from the offense. Junior outside hitter Jessica Hastriter’s 17 kills smashed her previous career-high personal record of 14 that she coincidentally racked up against CSUN when the two teams faced a little over a year ago. Sophomore Katelyn Peterson came up with 13 kills while Taylor Wilkinson averaged .417 in the middle.

The Vandals failed to match up with CSUN in the digs category with the Matadors out-digging the Vandals 69-56. The Vandals appeared on-top of their game in a 25-15 first set win but even a .290 average couldn’t give the team the much-needed 2-0 boost for a second set win as the Matadors tied it up to take the second set 25-23. The Vandals lost the third set 25-16 and rallied hard to force a fifth set but unfortunately it still wasn’t enough.

“We’re battling,” Buchanan said. “It’s a matter of fine-tuning some things and reducing some of those errors at the end, especially when you only have 15 points.”

The Vandals showed remarkable potential in the opening match of the tournament and the near future seemed promising. But there was one problem, NAU hadn’t lost a set in 2013 and after squaring off against the Vandals nothing changed. Despite the loss, Alyssa Schultz lead the team with 13 kills hitting an outstanding .765.

“Right now we’re letting everything get to us, it’s just composure,” Buchanan said. “It’s mental maturity a little bit. When we don’t pass the ball we panic instead of rebound and try to get the next one. Hopefully we’ll step away a little bit and get into a new game with a clean slate.”

Unfortunately for the Vandals, Saturday evening against San Diego State didn’t end up any different. While Hastriter earned all-tournament team honors for her 10 kill performance and .474 hitting against the Aztecs and career-high kills against the Matadors, the Vandals lost all three sets.

“Jess had a good weekend,” Buchanan said. “That’s good for her. We’re definitely scoring points when she’s up there. If she continues to gain confidence she can be pretty hard to stop. For her there’s a big difference as far as what she’s bringing right now, she’s doing the right things.”

The Vandals have a short turnaround before the Bronco Volleyball Classic against Boise State on Thursday, North Texas on Friday and Sacramento State on Saturday.

Aaron Wolfe can be reached at [email protected] 

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