CHADRON, Neb. – For the third straight match and fifth time in a row at home, Chadron State volleyball suffered a five-set loss, with New Mexico Highlands winning by the slimmest of margins – 25-22, 25-17, 25-27, 21-25, 16-14 – in the Chicoine Center on Saturday night.
Chadron State (7-9, 1-5 RMAC) has now had five of its six conference matches go the full five sets and six of its past eight total matches, with a 1-5 record in those five-setters. New Mexico Highlands (3-13, 1-5 RMAC) won its first conference match of the year after going five sets with Regis on Friday night.
Veteran
Kally Kirkwood notched a season-high 17 kills and hit .313 while sophomore
Brandi Helzer forced her way into the starting lineup for the final three sets and nearly doubled a career-high with 14 kills while hitting .414.
Senior libero
Avery Lacy tallied 28 digs, just one night after matching a career high with 32, and surpassed 1,000 career digs during Saturday's contest. Lacy was one of five Eagles in double digits, alongside
Shelby Harding (12),
Gibson Beckler (11),
Kali Reiners (11) and
Cydnie Eskew (10).
Chadron State recorded 107 digs as a team while New Mexico Highlands had 105. Those team totals rank first and second, respectively, among any RMAC teams in a single match this season.
Eskew recorded a career-high 33 assists despite sitting out the first set. Eskew took over as CSC's starting and primary setter for the final three assists, entering the starting lineup alongside Helzer as roster shakeups momentarily keyed another Eagle comeback which fell just short.
New Mexico Highlands hit 13 aces, tied for the second-most by an RMAC team in a match this season, while Chadron State hit six, with Lacy and Helzer hitting two apiece. The Cowgirls also had edges in kills (67-59) and blocks (10-9), but Chadron State had a better hitting percentage (.184 to .175).
Chadron State led 18-15 in the first set, but the Cowgirls found a late 8-1 run to take a 23-19 lead. The Eagles saved two set points with kills from Helzer and
Jillian Donovan, but the Eagles hit it out of bounds on the next point and NMHU took set one, 25-22.
The Cowgirls never trailed in the second set, taking a 4-0 lead and never looking back. Chadron State hit just .054 in the second set and had only a 45 percent sideout percentage.
Chadron State had to have the third set, and they stepped up, hitting .326 as a team with 16 kills against just one attack error.
Gibson Beckler (six kills in the set), Helzer (five) and Kirkwood (four) were weapons offensively for the Eagles, who still needed to save two match points at 24-23 and 25-24.
Helzer provided key kills to save match point and tie it at 24-24 and to seal the set at 27-25. On the preceding point, freshman
Kali Reiners delivered a massive ace to give CSC its first set point after the teams were tied for the 13
th time in the set at 25-25.
Chadron State used three kills, a
Josie Loosvelt ace and two Cowgirl miscues to build a 6-2 fourth-set lead. New Mexico Highlands won nine consecutive points to pull ahead 15-10 and put CSC in danger of losing the match in four sets, but the Eagles were resilient.
The Eagles responded with a 6-0 run of their own to turn a 17-14 deficit into a 20-17 lead. Five of the six points on that run were kills (two by Kirkwood, two by Helzer and one by
Sarah Meservey) while Meservey and Kirkwood combined on a block for the other point.
Meservey, the reigning RMAC Defensive Player of the Week, tallied seven blocks, including a solo stop, and added two more blocks during the final four points of the set as the Eagles won the fourth, 25-21.
In the fifth, New Mexico Highlands had its best offensive set, hitting .280 with nine kills. Even so, the Eagles scrapped to the end, as the lead changed four times with six ties in the decisive fifth set. Highlands led 9-6 before the Eagles took a 10-9 lead and the two programs tied at 9-9, 10-10, 11-11, 12-12, 13-13 and 14-14.
Chadron State had one match point at 14-13 in the fifth before Highlands came up with back-to-back blocks and a kill to win the set and the match.
The Eagles are on the road next week, facing conference frontrunners MSU Denver and UCCS, then host Black Hills State the following Tuesday, October 13.
