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Head Coach Tom Peterson said that he had expected the team to be performing better this far into the season.
“I thought we would get better and maybe we will but it just depends on our character,” Peterson said. “For the last matches of the year we need to show that character.”
Against PSU, WSU collectively had 26 errors, 23 kills, five aces, 23 digs, and 15 blocks. PSU had 16 errors, 44 kills, three aces, 38 digs and 15 blocks.
In the third set PSU out blocked WSU nine to seven. This is the first set in the past 11 games that WSU had been out blocked. University of Nebraska who is ranked second in the nation was the last team to out block the Wildcats back in early Sept.
PSU’s Megan Ellis had a total of 15 kills and Tineke Bierma added nine for the Vikings. Garyn Schlatter had assisted 35 of the 50 points scored by PSU. WSU’s Bethany Wray had nine kills and four blocks for the Wildcats. Shanae Langston added eight kills and five digs.
“We passed the ball better against Portland than we did Eastern but in both games we did not execute offensively,” Captain Shanae Langston said.
The team gets antsy and is unable to play to its potential, freshman outside hitter Dama Cox said.
“I feel like we worked hard but we over focused,” Cox said. “Sometimes we get so tense that we forget to calm down and play comfortably. We put too much pressure on ourselves.”
Saturday the ’Cats played the EWU Eagles. They lost in four sets. WSU won the first set. WSU had more successful attacks in the first set having 10 to EWU’s eight and less errors. WSU had five and EWU had 10. In team blocks each team had three. EWU was more successful in digs (11-10) and in serving aces (2-1).
“There were times we played well,” Peterson said. “The first set we won and we started blocking and getting excited. When we are on we can play with people.”
The tables turned on the Wildcats in the second, third, and fourth sets. WSU lost the next three sets. At the end of the entire set WSU ended with 29 kills, 31 errors, 27 assists, five serving aces, 39 digs and 20 team blocks. EWU had 45 kills, 23 errors, 39 assists, 10 serving aces, 58 digs and 24 team blocks.
“When one bad thing happened it lead to another, and another, and another, and then we shut down and gave up,” Langston said.
Team still needs to come together in the game situations. The team dynamic is there in practice and not in the game and that is frustrating for everyone, Langston also said.
“I don’t want to say that we are scared but we play inside ourselves in the game situations,” she said. “We should live for the game situations. That is why we are here.”
WSU Volleyball will play conference rival Idaho State University on Thursday night in the Swenson Gym. Then they will then hit the road to play Sacramento State University on Friday.
