Last weekend demonstrated that individual talent will not carry Idaho volleyball as they work towards team consistency heading into the Bronco Classic this weekend.
The Vandals dropped three straight matches last weekend in the Northern Arizona Fiesta Bowl Tournament. The first loss to Cal-State Northridge ended in a 10-1 third set run for the Matadors to stop the Vandals dead in their tracks. The disappointment for the Vandals dragged on with a shutout loss to NAU and such a hard fought loss to San Diego State that it didn’t even seem like a shutout. Meanwhile junior offensive-hitter Jessica Hastier had possibly the best weekend of her career earning all-tournament team honors with a career high 17 kills against CSUN.
“I was shocked to get it, it was an honor, I was speechless,” Hastriter said. “I did not know what to say and I’m very grateful for it and my confidence I think is the major thing that I think has been an improvement for me from last year.”
Unfortunately, the personal achievements of the returning talent for this team has only resulted in a 3-4 record thus far.
“We need to start putting it all together, we’re all good individually and we need to figure out how to put all the pieces together,” said Alyssa Schultz, junior middle blocker. “We did that great the first tournament, the second tournament wasn’t so great but so far this week we’ve gotten it all back.”
Schultz hit .091 against the Matadors with 4 errors but bounced back to hit .765 against NAU, more than each player on the rest of the team combined and .300 against the Aztecs.
The Vandals play Sacramento State at 12:30 p.m. Friday in Boise. The Hornets come into the tournament with a 5-3 record before a match against North Texas. The Vandals and the Hornets have not faced one another since 1986, but the two will be facing each other far more often when Idaho joins the Big Sky in 2014.
A match against North Texas at 9 a.m. will conclude the tournament Saturday for the Vandals. Idaho coach Debbie Buchanan is still looking for her career milestone 200th win.
“It’s hard when you’re not passing very well to run the offense we want,” Buchanan said. “That’s going to be the difference in our season — whether we can pass the ball or not.”
Last weekend, teams out-passed the Vandals 169-112.
Aaron Wolfe can be reached at [email protected]