The University of Idaho volleyball team went 2-1 at Middle Tennessee State’s Blue Raider Bash this weekend.
After losing its season opener to No. 15 Middle Tennessee 3-1 (20-25, 25-23, 20-25, 23-25), Idaho rallied, sweeping South Dakota State 3-0 and downing Southeast Missouri State 3-1.

“Overall, this was a good weekend and a good start to the season,” Idaho coach Debbie Buchanan said.
Though the first game of the season resulted in a loss, Buchanan was not disappointed with the team’s performance.
“We were neck-and-neck with one of the top teams in the country,” she said.

Middle Tennessee came out of last season 35-3 — the Vandals went 13-7.
However, the sweep of South Dakota State left the nine-year Idaho coach with a bitter taste.
“It’s always great to win, but we played pretty flat and were definitely not the same team as we were last night,” she said.

Buchanan’s comments on the third match were of the same nature, but to a lesser degree. Her final message was that Idaho picked up two wins, while learning some valuable lessons about themselves. 
“We recognized some areas we need to fix, but our passing and the systems we are running are good,” Buchanan said. “We now need to work on being a little more crisp and executing better as we head into next weekend.”

Haley Larsen led Idaho through all matches and dominated in all statistical categories including 21 kills against Southeast Missouri and five service aces against South Dakota State.
Larsen, who was ranked seventh in the nation last season in kills per game (5.39) and was voted to the All-Western Athletic Conference preseason team for the second consecutive season this year and was voted WAC Player of the Week for her performance. This is the third time in her career that Larsen has earned this honor.

This Vandal team, which lost none of its line-up from last season, has big ambitions for the upcoming season. Though Buchanan’s goals are not statistically oriented, she feels if they are met it would result in a solid record.

“Our goal is to make sure we are a defensive oriented team. We have to play defense, we have to pass and we have to block balls. Those are things we were not good at last year and we have to get back to that in order to compete in the WAC,” Buchanan said.

Idaho returns to Moscow for the Idaho Volleyball Classic tournament, and its first set of home matches this season. The Vandal’s first match with Washington State begins at 7 p.m. on Friday in Memorial Gym.

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