The womens volleyball team opened postseason play against
Mayville State University, the host school of the 2012 A.I.I. National
Qualifying Tournament. La Sierra entered
the tournament, as the #4 seed while Mayville State is the #5 seed. But with less than 24 hours to get acclimated
to their surroundings and a two-hour time difference, the Golden Eagles dropped
their opening match to the home team in three straight games, 25-22, 25-15,
25-20.
Mayville State jumped out to an early 4-1 lead in Game 1,
before the Golden Eagles clawed their way back to tie the score at 6-6. Mayville State then went on a run to extend
their lead to four points, at 10-6. La
Sierra answered the run with a run of their own; to eventually take the lead,
12-11. At one point they held a three-point
lead, 18-15, but Mayville State finished the game with a 10-4 run to take the
early lead in the match.
Game 2 began in a similar fashion to Game 1 in a
back-n-forth fashion. With the score
tied at 6-6, La Sierra was unable to gain any momentum, when the Comets
outscored the Golden Eagles 19-9, winning Game 2, 25-15.
The final game was a carbon copy of Game 1 with neither team
allowing the other to pull away. After
the Comets gained a slight lead at 14-11, the Golden Eagles fought back to
within one point, 15-14. But that would
be as close as La Sierra would get.
Mayville State pushed the lead to 20-15 and never looked back, winning
Game 3, 25-20 to win the match.
La Sierra finished with more kills in the match, 45-40, but
it was the attack percentage that seemed to tell the story. Mayville State finished with an attack
percentage of .405, with only six errors on their 84 total attempts. The Golden Eagles, despite having more kills
and more attempts finished with an attack percentage of .168, with 25 errors on
119 attempts.
Senior Shelby Madigan had 12 kills, six digs, two block
assists and one ace. Sophomore outside
hitter Lina Semaia finished with 11 kills and Lupe Garcia added 10 kills along
with five digs. Siao Malepeai pitched in
with six kills and eight digs. And
Colleen Stafford directed the offense with 40 assists and a team-high nine
digs.
In their second match of the day, the Golden Eagles will
face a familiar competitor when they hit the court against California State
University of San Marcos. San Marcos is
the #1 seed in the tournament and it will be the fourth meeting between the
Cougars and Golden Eagles this season.
The match is set to begin at 11:00am PST.
