Eagles dominate at Blue Mountain Invitational in Colorado

USU Eastern volleyball won four games this weekend at the Blue Mountain Inn and Suites Invitational in Rangley, Colo.
After struggling at their tournament in Arizona last weekend, Eagles’ Head Coach Danielle Jensen was happy to see her team have so much success in Colorado.
“It was a great weekend for our team. The team came out and played great all weekend. They have really battled through some things and are making huge strides,” said Jensen.
On Friday, the Eagles opened the tournament with a 3-1 win over Lamar Community College
Sophomore Sarah Mafi led the Eagles against Lamar with 21 kills, 18 digs, and 21.5 points, all team-highs.
Freshman setter Siara Roberts had a season-high 50 assists along with 14 digs.
For their second game of the day on Friday the Eagles would take down Central Wyoming 3-1.
It wasn’t a good start for the Eagles after losing the first set by double-digits but the USU Eastern continued to play well to get the win.
“It seems to take the girls a set to get going. But once they settle in and relax they take care of business,” said Jensen.
Mafi and Mackenzie Carter each had 16 kills against Central Wyoming helping the Eagles dominate the second and third set with 25-18 and 25-14 wins.
“Mackenzie really stood out this weekend, she dominated on the front row for us,” said Roberts.
The next day the Eagles had an early morning game against Dawson Community College at 8 a.m.
Didn’t matter how early the game was as the Eagles defeated Dawson 3-0.
Against Dawson, four different Eagles had 10 or more digs including Roberts, Mafi, Tiffany Schwendiman, and Alexus Desmarias. Mafi led the team with 21 digs on Saturday morning.
USU Eastern wrapped up the weekend with a 3-1 win over Western Wyoming, getting revenge for a 3-2 loss in their first game of the season on August 24.
The Eagles lost the first set to Western Wyoming before taking control of the game on both defense and offense.
In the first set the Eagles had eight errors, in the final three sets they had four or less each set.
The Eagles would not allow Western Wyoming to score more than 18 points in the final three sets as well.
“During the last three sets of the match against Western Wyoming I felt like our defense and offense worked together very well,” said Roberts.
Jensen said after the tournament that the successful weekend in Colorado was a team effort and that every player helped get the four wins.
“The girls are finally clicking and coming together as a team. We made some adjustments this last week in practice and the changes worked,” said Jensen.
As a team the Eagles rank eighth in kills with 558, rank seventh in digs with 798 and ninth in points with 716.
Individually, Mafi had another great weekend for the Eagles finishing with 55 kills, 71 digs and 59 points.
Mafi is currently fourth in the country in kills but she isn’t the only Eagle climbing up the national stat rankings.
Carter currently ranks seventh in the country in kills, Roberts ranks second in the country in assists with 495 and fourth in service aces with 24.
The Eagles will finish their non-conference schedule this upcoming weekend with a trip to Las Vegas for the CSN Tournament.
They open the tournament on Friday with a game against the eleventh ranked Western Nebraska at 4 p.m.
USU Eastern volleyball will open their conference schedule with their first home game on September 21 against Salt Lake Community College.