Volleyball experiences week of success, disappointment at home
This season the volleyball team has been working on consistency, and it has shown in the past three home games they’ve played.
Each game has been a battle, with the Coyotes trading points with opposing teams with no clear cut leader coming out on top until the end of each set.
“Starting slow is not acceptable anymore. We know who we can be and we’ve got to be consistent,” said head coach Leanne Williamson after this past Saturday night’s 3-0 win over North Dakota State. “It’s kind of been the theme of this entire year as we’ve talked about consistency each week.”
The last few days for the Coyotes have been a roller coaster of successes and disappointment. This past Friday USD lost to 1-3 Omaha, on Saturday they won 3-0 against NDSU and last night they lost 0-3 to Denver.
In Tuesday night’s game USD kept it close throughout all three sets, being edged out in the first set 17-25, coming back in the second to tie the game 10 times before falling 21-25 and trailing in the third set to end the game with an identical score to the first set with a score of 17-25.
Junior outside hitter Audrey Reeg led the Coyotes on offense with 12 kills and sophomore setter Brittany Jessen had a match-high of 34 assists.
On Saturday night, the Coyotes were looking to make a comeback from Friday night’s 1-3 loss to Omaha .
In set one of the night both teams traded points and fought for supremacy. The Bison were leading the Coyotes 23-21 when Jessen closed the game to one point. Senior middle blocker Kelsey Biltoft followed up the point with a kill in quick succession to tie the game at 23 all.
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That’s when NDSU sealed their fate with a hit out of bounds, followed by another hit straight into a block by Biltoft to give the Coyotes the first set 25-23.
Williamson said her team made a conscious decision to take the offensive after the slow start to the game.
“It made us a little bit nervous at the beginning, but our team made the decision that they weren’t OK with being that team anymore – the one that’s kind of chasing the opposition – so they made the decision to be the better team,” she said.
Set two was almost identical to the first with both teams volleying the ball back and forth before tying the game up at 13.
The Coyotes would then go on a scoring spree to stretch the lead by four before losing the lead to NDSU.
Courtesy of some nice kills by Biltoft and Jessen, along with a combined total of 23 digs from first-year defensive specialist Lauren Mattison and senior defensive specialist Kaitlyn Hastings, the Coyotes copied set one with a score of 25-23.
After half NDSU tried to rally, but they were shot down by the Coyotes as USD claimed victory by finishing the set 25-16 for a clean sweep.
Jessen said the main difference from Friday night to Saturday night was the focus of the team improved.
“Bouncing back from a loss is always tough without a practice in between, but what I think really helped was aggressiveness and lots of focus,” she said.
Biltoft, who’s second in kills for USD this season with 185 to her name, said there’s some loses the team wishes it didn’t have, but overall the team is happy with the way things are going.
“You obviously don’t want to peak too early and I feel like we have nowhere else to go but up right now.”
The Coyotes will face off against Western Illinois on Friday at 7 p.m. in Macomb, Ill.
