The seniors said goodbye to their home faithful in their last Memorial Gym appearances on Friday night and sent Seattle U home with a loss as the Vandals gear towards play in the nearing conference tournament.
The Vandals came into the match with scars from the bitter road loss against Seattle on Oct. 11, but avenged themselves in a 3-1 home finale victory.
“Now that we know we can beat them, we know that we can beat any team,” junior middle blocker Alyssa Schultz said.
Schultz played her last home match with her trusted middle blocker on her side, senior Taylor Wilkinson, who finished the night with two kills three blocks and a dig.
“Our seniors this year are huge. I came in with Ash (Christman) as a freshman so her and I have been through this whole process together,” Schultz said. “Tay (Wilkinson) came in her junior year and she’s my partner in what I do. She’s my other middle, they’ve helped the team immensely and it’s going to be a huge loss when we lose them next year.”
Senior outside hitter Ashley Christman had the match of her career in her last game in Memorial Gym.
“I’m just going to continue giving it my all because I only have three weeks left,” Christman said. “My parents are here, my brothers are here, so it’s great to have such a good night.”
Christman posted a career high 18 kills and 13 digs along with her first double-double.
The first set started out greatly in favor of the Vandals and dreadful for Seattle. Freshman defensive specialist Terra Varney started off the match with a serving ace and a couple hard-earned digs later on in the set. Schultz caught fire with three blocks and ended the set hitting perfect. The Redhawks were held to a negative hitting percentage while the Vandals, with the addition of Ashley Christman and Katelyn Peterson also on the attack to add fuel to Schultz’s fire, hit a .345 average. The Vandals made it happen with slow tempo control of the court to take a first set win at 25-15.
Seattle answered back with a little bit more consistency in the second set. The Vandals were behind for most of the set and seven errors committed by the Vandals didn’t help the cause. The blocking team remained aggressive with senior Taylor Wilkinson getting in on the action for her senior night with three block attempts. The Vandals held an edge in serving aces including one from sophomore setter Meredith Coba who added another eight assists to her 18 total in the first two sets.
Schultz and Christman were the source of the majority of the Vandal offense in the second set. The Redhawks’ .303 hitting percentage and the Vandals weak .203 hitting percentage made the deficit difficult to trim. Without a single lead change the Redhawks weren’t going to make the last home match easy with a 25-19 win second set win.
Oddly enough, the third set was a weaker hitting performance percentagewise, but the Vandals still held the edge. Peterson had some kills when it mattered and Christman continued to rack up kills and Schultz continued to hit efficiently well above .500 while the Rehawks struggled with just .045 hitting in the third set. The Vandals committed fewer errors than the Redhawks, but on the match, the two teams tied for kills at 34. Neither teams hit well but the Vandals held the advantage in hitting on the set as Christman continued to have the night of her career.
The fourth set erased any doubt in Vandal dominance on the match with .394 team hitting, a few tied scores and lead changes, but 14 combined kills between outside hitters Jessica Hastriter and Christman. Christman hit .714 in the final set and Coba dished it off to Hastriter for the final point of the match for a second consecutive win for the Vandals. Christman hit a team high .353 on the night along with the rest of her milestones.
“It was huge, I wanted to finish my time at Idaho with a win. It means a lot to have that win tonight and it helps us for our seeding for the WAC Tournament,” Christman said. “I could see us playing Seattle U back in the WAC Tournament in a couple weeks so it’s good we got that win so we can get something in their heads.”
The Vandals are now fourth in the WAC standings — just a half a game behind Cal State-Bakersfield knocking the Redhawks down to fifth place. The Vandals are on the road next against Chicago State Thursday with just three matches left on the season.
“We’ll come out of that with a win, we’ll go there, get that done and then we’re off to some bigger and better things,” Schultz said.
Aaron Wolfe can be reached at [email protected]