HUNTINGDON, Pa.—Eastern University Volleyball earned a difficult road win on Friday night, beating the Juniata College Eagles, a perennial volleyball powerhouse, 3-1.
According to the AVCA national rankings poll, No. 17 Eastern's win over No. 10 Juniata was an upset; however, in the NCAA's official regional rankings released on Thursday, Eastern was ranked No. 2 in the Mid-Atlantic region and Juniata was right behind them at No. 3.
Eastern overcame late deficits in both the first and third sets en route to the 27-25, 18-25, 28-26, 25-20 match win. Senior middle hitter Katrina Pisch, the NCAA's active career leader in hitting percentage, led the Eastern Eagles with 12 kills (1 error, 22 attempts) and hit an even .500 for the match. Erin Hillman recorded 11 kills, Alicia Weigel added 10 kills and Lauren Sproles added nine. Juniata was led by outside hitter Amelia Kepler's 13 kills and middle hitter Nakita Gearhart's 11 kills.
In the first set, Eastern fell behind by as many as seven points at 17-10. Later after a double block by Pisch and Rikki Schlager pulled Eastern to within four at 18-14, Juniata took a timeout. During the timeout, Eastern head coach Mark Birtwistle continued to stress that they needed to control the ball. He noted that defensive specialist Lauren Horst and libero Rylie Haas came up big with their passing to help Eastern come back in the set.
Juniata took two more points out of the timeout, but soon had a string of three consecutive attack errors. Eastern inched closer, but Juniata still led the set at 24-22. Hillman picked up a kill at 24-23 down the left line, and Eastern tied the game at 24-24 on a Juniata attack error. Eastern gave a point back on the next play, but Juniata shanked a serve to tie the game at 25-25. Pisch and Schlager put up a wall again on the next point to make the block, and then Pisch ended the set in Eastern's favor 27-25 with a kill.
Pisch echoed coach Birtwistle's assessment that good passing made their offense tick, especially in the comeback sets. "Our passers did a really great job in getting the ball up to Rikki so that she could set up anyone she wanted to," Pisch said. "Rylie (Haas), (Lauren) Sproles and Lauren Horst really stepped it up back there when we were down and gave us opportunities to score."
Haas led everyone with 27 digs. Horst, Schlager and Miranda Kauffman each had 12 digs. Sproles added nine.
After an emotional comeback in the first set, Eastern fell flat in the second set, committing a game-high 11 errors in the set and hitting -.114 as a team.
In the middle of the third set, Eastern had a four-point lead, but Juniata caught them at 12-12 and then took a four-point lead of their own. However, Eastern caught Juniata at 19-19 with a Schlager kill. Eastern reached set point at 24-22, but Juniata caught up and the teams traded points back and forth. Eastern's Hillman rattled off three kills in a row to take the set at 28-26.
In set four, Eastern clung to a 20-18 lead and closed out the set with two kills from Pisch and two from Weigel. Weigel ended the match with a spike that plunked off the top of the net and landed in.
For the Eastern Eagles, this is only the third time in 21 tries that they have beaten the rival Eagles. Sproles, a senior captain, mentioned that this win is definitely a confidence boost going into Saturday's games, but that they also can't rest on their laurels. "I'm so proud of the whole team because everyone stepped up and rose to the challenge ahead of them," she said. "This was a very big regional win for us … but each team we play tomorrow is very good and they will show us different things, so we need to be able to come in, forget about tonight and focus on the task at hand."
On Saturday, the Eastern Eagles play both the fourth and fifth ranked teams in the region. Coach Birtwistle said he thinks that this will be a good test for the team. "The last time we had an emotional win (against Salisbury) we laid an egg against Haverford," he said. "We can't come out flat tomorrow. We're further along in the season now; hopefully we'll show that we're more mature."
"Tomorrow we have to make sure we do the little things right," Pisch added. "We have to do what we came here to do and prove that we deserve to be ranked No. 2 in the region."
Eastern (23-5) continues in the Juniata tournament Saturday against Stevenson University at 11 a.m. and Carnegie Mellon at 3 p.m.
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