September 4, 2006 - Eastern Washington 3 Rider 0
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 4, 2006
Women's College Volleyball
Eastern Washington University 3, Rider University 0
LAWRENCEVILLE--The Broncs took advantage of having a powerful West Coast volleyball team in the area, hosting Eastern Washington while the Eagles were on an East Coast road trip. “They had a scrappy, ball-handling style of play, and they were big,” said Rider head coach Emily Ahlquist. “We won’t see a team this big again this year. This team will prepare us for our conference season.”
The Broncs took on the powerful Eastern Washington Eagles on Labor Day, falling to the Eagles in three games. EWU (7-1) defeated Rider (2-6) 30-21, 30-20, 30-28.
For Rider, senior Megan Smith (Webster, N.Y./Webster) had nine kills, and freshman JoAnna Winter (Hamburg, MN) had 18 assists. Junior Nastasja Avramovic (Philadelphia, Pa./Northeast) added 15 digs.
“I though (junior) Katrina Stehle, (Greensburg, Pa./Hempfield) played great," said Ahlquist. “She really took over. Nas also played great. She played three different positions in three different games. To be able to do that is wonderful.”
“I think it went better than we expected because we knew how strong a program they have and they were pretty big girls,” said Avramovic. “It was a little intimidating up front at first. The first game we were a little tentative coming out. Today was the first day back on campus for the students, and that was great, having a crowd here tonight. The third game we picked it up and got on a good roll. We gave them a run for their money in the third game. That was exciting.”
In the first game, Rider led 4-3 and the score was tied at 9-9 before the Eagles went on a 10-1 run to take a 19-10 lead. Trailing 27-16, Rider went on a 4-2 run to cut the lead to 29-21. Smith had six kills in the first game, while Winter had nine assists.
In the third game, Rider trailed 4-3 before taking a 7-4 lead on the serving of freshman Amy Jeary (Depew, NY). Rider led 15-12 before taking a 20-12 lead on the serving of sophomore Lacey Johnson (Aurora, CO).
“The end was good,” Ahlquist said. “We started off tentatively, didn’t really play our game, but we came around in the end and we were handling the ball much better. We just put ourselves into a position at the end that we couldn’t make any errors. We had a good run at the end, and that was great, but we can’t put ourselves in that position.”
“Playing with a lead is so different,” said Avramovic. “The intensity in that game was huge. Everybody was cheering and getting excited, it got the momentum up."
Eastern Washington won the Peahen Invitational Volleyball Tournament over the weekend at Saint Peter's before coming to Rider with a 6-1 record. Eastern Washington has played eight matches in 11 days and now returns to the Inland Northwest to play at Gonzaga in Spokane.
Rider is off until September 13 when the Broncs travel to Fairleigh Dickinson.
“I think tonight showed a lot of potential for us,” said Avramovic. “Being such a young team and being so close at the end, I think we’re going to do great things down the road and in our conference. Playing a team like this gets us prepared.”
Being prepared for the MAAC schedule. If that was the reason to play a team like Eastern Washington, then Mission Accomplished.
-RU-
