This past weekend, the Idaho Vandals Volleyball team secured their first conference home
game win of the season against Eastern Washington. After a slate of close games, Vandals really needed this win to hop back on track. The Eagles have had a tough year, falling to 2- 20, and the Vandals beat them both times in a sweep, moving on to 5-17 for the year.
In the first set, the Vandals started out strong, with a five-point run and a lead of 11- 5. Idaho had a hit percentage of 0.194 percent and 15 kills. Eastern Washington came back at the end of the set, but the Vandals held strong and won 25-23.
In set two, Eastern Washington made some plays and went on an eight-point run. The Eagles responded to the momentum from the Vandals, and they also went on afive5-point run at the end to win the set 25-20.
Set three and four, the Vandals responded and won 25-23 and 25-19. They had a couple scoring runs and capitalized on errors. Freshman Kiana Greer had a standout performance with 19 kills and 0.308 hitting percentage. She continued to impress everyone as a true freshman.
Assistant coach Ben Kasun spoke on the impact of Greer and how she has responded to getting a full scholarship earlier this season.
“She relaxed a little bit…every day, she continues to get more mature in her spot,” Kasun said.
The Vandals have six more games left in the season and will go on next week to play two more home games. The Vandals will face off against the Weber State Wildcats, who are 13- 9. Idaho fell 3-0 in their last matchup, and this time hopes to carry over what they can from
their win against EWU. Kasun is optimistic they can keep the momentum going into next week’s homestand.
“We want to keep the feeling, the euphoria you get from this,” Kasun said. “There’s a lot of things that we can improve upon from this game, so we want to take those things that we can improve upon.”
The Vandals will welcome the Wildcats to Memorial gymnasium on Thursday, Nov. 6, at 6 p.m.
Timmon Friel can be reached at [email protected]