The first home match of the season against Utah Valley started off with the Vandals skating by with some slight advantages but in the later sets of the game the team just couldn’t hold on.
Abi Stomberg | Argonaut
Outside hitter Katelyn Peterson spikes the ball during Thursday’s match against Utah Valley in Memorial Gym. The Vandals lost 3-2 in their home opener.
The Vandals won the first set 27-21, lost the second set 24-23, won the third set 25-19 and lost the final set 15-11 in a back and forth battle. Unfortunately, a .176 hitting percentage in the fourth and a poor hitting percentage in the final set made it difficult to stop Utah Valley’s .270 performance in the third and a fewer number of errors for the Wolverines attack while the Vandals remained error prone later in the final minutes.
The performance seemed shaky at times for the Vandals but hitting was relatively low on both sides with Utah Valley committing a substantial amount of errors as well — most remarkably 10 errors in the third set.
“I couldn’t tell which team wanted to win, it was more about who had the run or who wasn’t making the errors,” Idaho coach Debbie Buchanan said. “At some point you got to step up and take control and we’re just not doing that right now.”
Terra Varney and Jenna Ellis appeared aggressive in the back row with 29 digs to combine for a slight advantage in the statistic compared to the opponent but it just wasn’t enough. Buchanan stressed passing as a factor moving forwards on the Vandal side of the net.
“Passing-wise is the biggest thing they struggled a little bit and we had some moments where they got on their runs,” Buchanan said.
Among the positive aspects of the match for the Vandals was middle blocker Alyssa Schultz who had a solid performance hitting .440 and offensive hitter Jessica Hastriter who racked up 13 kills to tie Schultz as the team leader in that category. Setter Meredith Coba who sits on high expectations to lead the team moving forward gathered 43 assists, but the team hitting did not reflect a net-attacking performance.
“The communication was fine the execution just wasn’t great,” Buchanan said. “We have to come ready to compete we just made too many errors tonight.”
The Vandals will be looking to redeem themselves against Cal-State Bakersfield in the presence of another significant home crowd at 7 p.m. Saturday followed by a Monday matchup at the same time against Grand Canyon to close off the home stand.
“I think we were just a rollercoaster tonight you saw spurts where we did some good things and moments where we struggled, we’ve just got to be more consistent,” Buchanan said.
Aaron Wolfe can be reached at [email protected]