SAN ANTONIO, Texas– In the team's final match in Texas, Eastern University Women's Volleyball dropped a five-set heart-breaker to the No. 11 Trinity University Tigers. The Eagles won the second and third sets and had leads in each of the final two sets to the tournament hosts.
Grace Casagrande recorded a program-record 40 digs and
Hannah Pringle finished with 24 kills and a sparkling .345 hitting percentage.
After scuffling to a 25-16 loss in the opening set, the Eagles broke open a tight second set with strong serving and consistent hitting from Pringle and
Logan Martin. The Eagles (7-2) were successful on 14-of-19 sideout chances in the second set and closed the set on a 13-to-6 run to win 25-18.
The Eastern offense was even better in taking the third set 25-15. Five Eastern hitters had at least three kills and the team hit .341. The Eagles grabbed control of the set with
Viviana Fragoso and Casagrande serving. A Fragoso ace put the Eagles up 13-11, and Casagrande made it 21-12 with a serve off the tape to end the run.
Bridgette Kelly delivered the final kill of the set.
The Eagles built a 16-12 lead in the fourth, but Julie Jenkins, Trinity's veteran head coach, called her second timeout of the set to stop the run. The hosts flipped the script of the set behind strong serving from their star Logan Mackenzie. The Tigers went up 19-16. The Eagles pulled back to within a point on another Casagrande ace late, they fell 25-23 as Casagrande's serve slipped inches off the back corner.
The Eagles jumped to an 8-5 lead in the final set, but the Tigers found their rhythm after the change of ends. Mackenzie, a fifth-year from Calgary, had four of her team-best 20 kills in her team's final five points. Led by Pringle's six kills, the Eagles hit a solid .269 in the final frame, but the hosts had two aces, one block, and did not make a hitting error while putting away ten balls for a .357 percentage.
Fragoso had 16 digs and four aces and Martin had 15 kills and three blocks. Jiron Bujanda posted 56 assists.
Casagrande becomes the first Eastern player to post 40 digs in a match. Kelly Groff and Rylie Haas each had 38 dig matches and Nikki Armacost had 39 in a four-set win over Beaver College (now Arcadia University) in 1993. Up until 2001, NCAA Volleyball played with sideout scoring, where games were to 15, but teams could only score points when they were serving. In 2001, that rule changes and NCAA Women's Volleyball played best-of-five matches with rally scoring to 30 points. The current scoring system has been in place since 2008.
Worth noting, Jenkins and current Eastern head coach
Mark Birtwistle were both coaching at the current institutions through all of those rule changes. Jenkins is the current active leader in wins and has been at Trinity for 40 years. The Tigers were the 2022 National Runner-up, and have played in each of the last four Elite Eights.
Pringle and Martin were named to the All-Tournament team, and Pringle was named MVP as Eastern claimed the tournament title out of a three-way tiebreaker.
"We played a solid match against a top-10 team", Birtwistle said. "We had a great comeback after the first set to regroup and play our game. Trinity is well-coached and disciplined and they just don't beat themselves. We have some great learning moments to take out of this weekend. Overall it was a successful trip."
The Eagles will fly home to be in class on Monday, but they do not get much of a break in the schedule. This coming Friday they will host a Christopher Newport University Team that went 2-1 at the Tufts Invitational this weekend. The Captains beat the host Jumbos and No. 17 Calvin before falling in five tight sets to an unbeaten side from MIT. The Captains are 5-4 through nine matches but have losses to top-ranked Juniata and No. 4 Hopkins on their schedule.
